Play Dates
by sinderella0069
Summary: When he finds out Connie is planning on going on a date with somebody else at the end of the week, Steven enlists Peridot to act as his girlfriend in order to make her jealous. This is an older!Steven x Peridot smutty story, you have been warned.
1. Monday

I know the fake dating trope is super predictable, but honestly, I don't care because it's such fun to write. I'm aiming to put a little bit of smut in every chapter, but of course, because they're only fake dating, it'll be a few chapters before we get serious porn. But yes, this is an older!Steven x Peridot smutty story. If older!Steven x Peridot smutty stories are not your thing, I suggest you turn back now, because I will not be all that happy if every single comment I get is a complaint that it's an older!Steven x Peridot smutty story. You have been warned.

MONDAY

"Peridot! I need you to be my girlfriend!"

Peridot stared at Steven in shocked silence for several seconds. She'd fantasized about hearing those words so many times that for a moment, she honestly thought she'd imagined it. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" she said eventually.

"I need you to be my girlfriend," Steven said again before elaborating. "On Friday. Connie's coming back from college for Spring Break and I asked her if she wanted to come over and hang out, but _apparently_ , she's going on a date!" He scowled in annoyance. "With _Peedee!_ Can you believe it!?"

Actually, Peridot could. Peedee, with his strong work ethic and desire for cleanliness and order seemed like a good match for the diligent and focused Connie, but as it obviously wasn't the answer Steven wanted to hear, she kept her mouth shut and let him continue ranting.

"-said she'd moved on and only saw me as a friend, so I'm going to show her just what she's missing," Steven finished, looking determined. "So I thought if you pretended to be my girlfriend and we showed up at the movies on Friday when they go, she might get jealous and change her mind."

"I see," Peridot said slowly. "You know, I've seen this exact same plot in Camp Pining Hearts on at least four separate occasions, and it never works."

"That's just television," Steven said, dismissing her concerns with a quick wave of his hand. "You know they make everything go wrong for drama."

"True," she admitted. She drummed her fingers on her chin for a moment. "So… how exactly would _I_ benefit from this arrangement?" she asked. She already knew she was going to say yes, because being Steven's pretend girlfriend was still better than nothing, but she didn't want to look like a complete pushover.

"Uh…" He thought hard until an idea began to blossom in his mind. His father had given him a credit card for emergencies a couple of years ago, but he really only ever used it to buy food when Amethyst had eaten everything, so he knew he had plenty of credit available. "I'll take you to Radio Shack for a shopping spree?"

"Oooooh." Peridot slowly nodded in approval. "I must admit, that's a tempting offer."

"So will you do it?" He stared at her with his best puppy-dog eyes. "Will you pretend to be my girlfriend on Friday?"

"No."

"But-"

Peridot held up a hand to stop his protests. "We can't just show up at the movies on Friday and expect her to believe we're dating," she explained when he looked confused. "Don't you recall what happened in season seven? Jude and Jade pretended to be dating to try and make their ex's jealous, but because it happened so suddenly, nobody believed them. We'd need to dating _before_ Friday to be convincing."

"Oh." Steven could see the sense in that. "OK then, will you pretend to be my girlfriend this week?"

"Throw in a shopping spree for clothes too, and you've got yourself a deal."

She held out a hand, and he reached out and shook it. "Deal."

Immediately, Peridot launched into action. "The first thing we need to do," she announced, "is to work out our story."

"Our story?" Steven repeated.

Peridot nodded. "Recall season four. Ricky and Nikki were caught out because they hadn't thought of a story as to why they were dating, so when they were asked, Ricky said he'd asked Nikki during the barbeque, while Nikki said she'd asked _him_ when she found him lost in the woods. In fact," she added with a laugh, "I seem to recall you telling me about a similar problem during the time the Crystal Gems pretended to be married to Greg."

"Ugh, don't remind me!" Steven groaned. He had to admit, she had a point. The meal with Connie's parents had always been doomed from the start, but it might have gone slightly better if any of them had thought about what questions they might be asked beforehand, instead of him making up wild stories about apple farms and roller coasters on the spot. If he told Connie he and Peridot had decided to start dating at a roller coaster, she'd know he was lying. "OK. So, why are we dating?"

"We should probably keep it relatively close to the real reason," Peridot mused. "You came to me and told me Connie was dating Peedee. That much is true. But then we can say that I told you I liked you, and that made you re-evaluate your life and you realized that even though you two had never officially been boyfriend and girlfriend, you'd always assumed you and Connie would end up together and you'd never bothered looking elsewhere because you'd thought she would always be there, but now you're happy she forced you to take another look around because now you see me in a different light. A girlfriend light."

"Wow!" Steven reeled back in amazement. "That's great, how did you think of all that so quickly?"

"I'm very smart," Peridot said demurely. "And I definitely haven't been imagining anything remotely like that for months. So! Our schedule!" Her gem glowed and she took a small notebook and pencil out of it. "You said they'd be at the movies on Friday, correct?"

"Yep." Steven nodded. "They're going to see Killerbot 6."

"And today is Monday. So if we include today, that gives us four days to establish a relationship." She tapped her pencil on the paper. "Today we should definitely concentrate upon being seen."

"We can go to the beach," Steven said at once. "It's a beautiful day today, so there'll be plenty of people there. And Peedee's bound to be working at the stall at some point, so we can make sure he sees us."

"Excellent." Peridot scribbled' beach' on the page. "And his brother, the creepy one who spies on everyone, is he still staying in the lighthouse?"

"Ronaldo?" Steven asked, before realizing there really wasn't anyone else who fit that description. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he lives in there now."

"Then tomorrow, we'll have a romantic picnic up there and watch the sunset. He's bound to see us-"

"-And he'll probably tell his brother. He might even put it on his blog!" Steven finished in delight. "Peri, you're a genius!"

She allowed herself a smug grin at his praise. "I know. Now, moving on. Wednesday, perhaps we should take a break. If we spend _every_ day of the week indulging in public displays of affection, people might begin to get suspicious."

"Like in season nine, when Paulette tried to make Percy jealous by making out with that new swim instructor?" Steven remembered.

Peridot laughed. "She was so obvious!"

"Yeah, every time he turned around, she was in that guys lap!" Steven laughed as well. "OK, so nothing on Wednesday. Maybe we could just send each other texts. I could show them to Connie-"

"Ah!" Peridot's eyes lit up with inspiration. "I have a much better idea!" She pulled her phone out of her gem and began scrolling through it. "It's a scientifically proven fact that when somebody is shown an image on a phone, they are unable to resist swiping through to look at the other images. So over the next few days, I am going to send you some of my best 'selfies'. Then on Wednesday, take a picture of something interesting. When you show it to Connie, she will be unable to resist swiping through your other pictures, which is when she'll find photographs of me, looking especially attractive," she bragged. "Now, Thursday… um…" She trailed off as she finally ran out of ideas.

"We can go to the Funland Amusement Park," Steven suggested. "We'll go on some of the rides together and then I'll try and win you an enormous toy."

"Perfect." She jotted that down, and then added 'Friday - movies' underneath. "Very well. Go back to the house and gather up whatever you require for a day at the beach. I'll meet you there as soon as I am ready."

"Great!" He leaned over and gave her a quick hug. "Thanks Peri, you're the best."

xxx

Fifteen minutes later, Peridot warped into the beach house, dressed in a pretty pink floaty sundress, with a pair of sunglasses jammed into her hair. "Ready?"

"Yup." Steven proudly held a canvas bag aloft. "I've got sunscreen, water, towels, magazines and some money for snacks."

"Excellent." She smirked at him and held out her hand. "Let's go."

They left the house and began walking around the cliff towards the Boardwalk. Some colleges and schools had evidently broken up for Spring Break a little earlier than Connie's, and this, coupled with the nice weather, meant that the beach was surprisingly busy. Still, they managed to find a patch of sand just in front of Fish Stew Pizza, where they could easily see who was working at the fry stall next door. "It's Fryman," Steven hissed as he unrolled his towel. "But he usually takes a lunch break at about one o'clock. Peedee might take over then."

Peridot checked the time on her phone. "Eleven thirty. So we need to stay here for at least an hour and a half. What should we do?"

Steven's mind went blank. "Uh… I don't really know," he confessed. "Usually when I come to the beach, it's because there's monsters or an event or something. I don't usually kind of just… hang out."

Peridot scanned the other people around them for a few seconds before coming to a decision. She yanked her dress over her head, revealing her floral bikini, and stuffed it into the bag before pulling out the sunscreen. "Take off your clothes and put this on me," she commanded.

"I didn't think gems could tan?" Steven commented in surprise, although he obediently took the bottle anyway.

"We can't," she said serenely, sitting herself down on the towel in front of him. "But from my brief observations, applying sunscreen to one another can be quite romantic." She nodded over at another couple a short distance away, who were dabbing sunscreen on each others noses and giggling.

"Ah, right. Gotcha." He stripped down to his board shorts, squirted a blob of lotion into his hand and began rubbing it onto her shoulders and back. "How's that?"

"Mmm." She smiled to herself. "Very good. Now lie down and I'll do you- hey!"

Steven laughed as she crossed her eyes, trying to look at the blob of sunscreen on the tip of her nose. "Sorry. Hold still, I'll wipe if off." Once he was done, he lay down on his stomach. The he let out a small yelp of surprise as she suddenly straddled his hips and sat down on his butt. "What are you doing!?"

"Shh." Peridot's eyes flicked over to the bushes that lined the Boardwalk. Every now and then, sunlight gleamed as it bounced off of something, and she could guess exactly what it was. "We're being watched. Act natural."

Steven tensed and his own gaze began to swoop across the beach. "Where?"

Peridot squirted sunscreen into her hands and leaned forward to rub it onto his upper back. "Ronaldo. In the bushes. With binoculars," she whispered. "Don't look, he'll see!" she added as he began to turn his head. "Just lay still."

"OK," Steven muttered. He relaxed slightly and let himself just enjoy the feeling of her hands on his body. Then she shifted slightly and started rubbing lotion on his sides and on the small of his back and he squirmed, belatedly realizing that he was perhaps enjoying it a little too much. "That's uh, that's probably enough sunscreen," he said with a cough.

"OK," she said agreeably. "Hold still. I'm going to take a selfie. Then I'm going to kiss you on the cheek, so don't flinch."

Season eleven, he understood. Jimmy and Ginny had been caught out when he'd tried to kiss her without warning and she'd turned her face away. So when she leaned forward again and pressed her lips to his cheek, he didn't move. To be honest, he didn't quite dare. He could feel her breasts touching his back, and he was suddenly acutely aware that she was sitting on him and not wearing very much at all. If he moved, he was likely to get arrested.

"Your skin is very warm," she commented when she pulled away. "Has the sun caused your body temperature to rise? Would you like a drink of water?"

"Actually, could you get me an ice cream?" he asked, nodding over in the direction of Cone 'N' Son. "A chocolate one?"

"Of course." She stood up, much to his relief, and took the money from the bag and walked away. He watched her hips swing from side to side before he realized what he was doing, and turned away.

"Control yourself, Steven," he scolded himself. "Remember, you're doing this for Connie, and Peridot is just a friend. Stop enjoying yourself so much." But of course, he admitted internally, the whole reason he'd asked Peridot for help in the first place was because he'd suspected it would be a lot easier to fake a romantic relationship with her than with anyone else, because he already thought she was cute.

A shadow fell over him and he glanced up before recoiling at the sight of Ronaldo's undermoobs. "Gah!"

"Steven," Ronaldo said formally, dropping onto the sand next to him. "Usually I would avoiding stepping onto this beach when the sheeple are around, but I feel as though I must speak to you on a matter of great urgency."

"Oh?" Steven asked cautiously. He half-hoped Ronaldo was talking about Peridot, but honestly, it was just as likely that he wanted to talk about how Fish Stew Pizza had started doing dessert pizzas for the holiday season and that was clearly a sign that they were under the control of sneople. "What's that?"

Ronaldo gestured dramatically in the direction of the ice cream stall. "You and the eco-terrorist, of course!"

Steven groaned and let his face fall onto the sand, immediately regretting it when he inhaled a mouthful of sand. "Ack!" He spat and then tried again. "Ronaldo, I told you a hundred times already, Peridot isn't an eco-terrorist."

"The zoos-" the other young man began, but Steven cut him off at once.

"She's been here for fours years! The zoos are fine! The only one of us who's ever done any sort of zoo-breaking is _me_!" He narrowed his eyes. "You're still just mad she blew up your drones, aren't you?"

Ronaldo puffed up with outrage. "Do you _know_ how much a drone costs!?"

"Yes," Steven said flatly. "Because my dad replaced three of them before he put his foot down and told you to just stop trying to spy on her." Belatedly, he remembered his plot. "A-and as her boyfriend, I second that advice."

"Aha!" Ronaldo shot to his feet and pointed accusingly at him. "I knew it!"

"Knew what?" Steven said innocently.

"I knew she was planning something!" He began pacing back and forth and Steven was forced to move back to avoid the sand being kicked at his face. "Alien breeding experiments!"

Steven's mouth dropped open. " _What_!?"

"Alien breeding experiments!" Ronaldo said again. "Of course! As the link between humans and aliens, you're the ideal starting point- stop laughing!" he scolded as Steven began to do just that. "You won't be laughing when she takes you to her secret laboratory and has her wicked way with you!"

"Oh, I'm looking forward to it!" Steven joked, and laughed harder at the horrified look on the other man's face. "Don't worry. It's only our first date. We're saving the secret lab for at least the third one."

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you," Ronaldo said crossly. "You know, once she's done with you, she'll move on to human men. She'll probably start with your father, after all, he's already successfully reproduced with an alien."

Steven stopped laughing at once and jumped to his feet. He wasn't quite sure if he was more offended about the implied insult towards his father, his mother or Peridot herself, but either way, he was definitely offended. Despite a small growth spurt two years ago, he was still much shorter than the other man, but he still managed to be surprisingly intimidating and Ronaldo took a hasty step backwards. "I think you'd better leave now," he said quietly. "My girlfriend is coming back and I don't want you bothering her."

"I'm going. But remember," he added as he began to flounce away. "I told you so!" And with that, he marched off across the sand, making sure to deliberately step into Peridot's path as she approached, forcing her to step around him.

"What's _his_ problem?" she asked, handing over the ice cream. "Is he still angry about the drones?"

"Yeah." Steven licked his cone and sat back down on the sand. "Also he thinks you're planning on doing weird breeding experiments on me and my dad."

xxx

After Steven was done with his ice cream, they built a sandcastle and messed around in the water for half an hour before they returned to their towels and read the magazine together. Steven spotted Peedee taking orders at the fry stall, but he waited until they'd both finished being rubbish at the crossword before he suggested heading over to get some bits. Peridot agreed, so they both pulled their clothes back on over their swimsuits and walked back up the beach, hand in hand.

"Hey, Peedee," Steven greeted with rather more warmth that he felt at the sight of his love rival.

"Steven," Peedee replied, a little warily. His eyes darted down to their clasped hands and he relaxed slightly. "Can I get you the bits?"

"Please." Steven turned to Peridot. "What about you, sweetie? Do you want anything?"

Peridot snuggled against his arm and tried to look adorable and mostly managed it. "Well, I was saving eating for a special occasion…"

"What could be more special than our first date?" Steven exclaimed at once.

"Our second date?" she replied cheerfully.

Peedee cleared his throat. "So, uh, are you two a thing then?" he asked hesitantly. "Ronaldo did say something, but you know, Ronaldo…"

"Yeah." Steven valiantly resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "We know Ronaldo. But you have to admit, there's often a tiny bit of truth in his claims."

"Except the bit about me being an eco-terrorist," Peridot grumbled.

Steven leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "I bet _Yellow Diamond_ thinks you're an eco-terrorist," he teased.

Peridot perked up at once and grinned smugly. "It _would_ be fun to liberate the rest of that zoo," she mused aloud. "Except from what you told us, it doesn't sound as if the zoomans would cope very well with life on Earth."

Peedee was looking a little lost, so Steven changed the subject. "So I hear you and Connie are an item now too?" he said brightly, taking the bag of fry bits from Peedee's outstretched hands.

"Oh, yeah." Peedee smiled. "She came home last week to visit her parents and I ran into her at the movies. We got chatting, she mentioned she was planning on seeing the new Killerbot movie, and I asked her if she'd like to see it with me."

"What a coincidence!" Peridot said loudly, squeezing Steven's hand a little too tightly because he seemed to have frozen. "We're planning to see that movie too!"

"Really?" Peedee suddenly gasped. "Hey, why don't you come with us? We can make it a double date!"

"Uh, OK," Steven said in a slightly strained voice. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Sure, that'd be great," he said, a bit more convincingly. "Text me and let me know when you wanna meet and stuff."

"OK," Peedee said happily. "Enjoy your bits!"

"Thanks." Steven nodded and stepped away from the stall. "Bye."

Peridot waited until they were back on the beach and well out of earshot before questioning him. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah. It's just…" He sighed and flopped onto his back. "She never told me she was here at the weekend. Why wouldn't she tell me that?"

"Well…" Peridot struggled to think of something diplomatic to say. "She must have had her reasons. Perhaps you can ask her on Friday. Anyway," she quickly added, "it's not important. But do you know what is?"

"What?" Steven said gloomily.

Peridot smirked and nodded her head back in the direction of Beach Citywalk Fries. "Peedee is going to have to tell Connie that he's invited us along on their date."

xxx

They hung out on the beach for another hour so as not to appear suspicious, and then headed back to the beach house. None of the other gems seemed to be around, they noted with some relief; somehow neither of them thought the others would really approve of their dating, fake or otherwise. "I'll come over tomorrow afternoon and we can make preparations for the picnic," Peridot declared, heading for the warp pad.

"It's a date," Steven said with a grin.

She smiled back and disappeared. He gazed at the space where she'd been standing, and then sighed and turned away. His skin felt gritty with salt and sand, so he stepped into the bathroom to take a shower. He made sure to take his phone out of his pocket before he put his shorts in the laundry basket, and found himself staring at the blank screen. "Why didn't you tell me you were in town?" he said aloud to himself. Even if she didn't consider him boyfriend material, they were still friends, right? So why hadn't she told him she'd been back?

Before he could dwell upon it any longer though, the phone buzzed in his hand and he almost dropped it in surprise. The he smiled again when he saw that it was a picture message from Peridot. Presumably it was one of the attractive selfies she'd promised. He opened the message, and sure enough, there she was, outside the barn with the beach in the background, dressed in that pretty pink sundress, her hair slightly mussed from playing on the beach, and a cheerful smile on her face.

Then the phone buzzed with a second picture, and this time, he really did drop the phone. He fumbled for it with shaky hands, and took a second look, just to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. But nope, it was still the selfie she'd taken when she was sitting astride him in her bikini. He stared at the picture for several seconds, drinking in the details. The angle of the shot meant that he could see down her top, and her position meant if he'd rolled over, she would've been sitting on his dick-

He gulped and quickly held the phone to his chest and cast a furtive glance around the room, half expecting one of the gems to burst in and catch him with a growing boner and a half-naked picture of Peridot. Of course, that didn't happen, but he reached out to check the lock on the door, just in case. He shook his head. "I should probably take a cold shower."

Then again… it wasn't like he was doing anything _wrong._ He peeked at the photo again, zooming in slightly to get a better view of her cleavage and reaching down into his shorts to rub himself. Then, realizing that if he carried on like this, he was going to make a mess in his shorts, he finished stripping off and stepped into the shower.

As the warm water ran over him, he closed his eyes and let his thoughts wander as he carried on stroking himself. Connie. Think of Connie, he told himself. Connie on the beach in a little white bikini. He was lying on the beach and she was standing in front of him, smiling down. He tried to stand up, but someone was sitting on his back. He rolled over and Peridot was sitting on his aching crotch. "Hello, Steven," she purred. "Did you like the photo?"

"It was great," he imagined himself saying.

"Hmm…" She sat back slightly and ground down upon him. "I can think of one or two ways the image could be improved upon." She reached behind her and unclasped her top and tossed it aside. "How's this?"

"B-better," he gasped. In his head, he reached out and fondled her naked boobs. In reality, he jerked himself a little faster and pretended Peridot was reaching into his shorts, giving him a helping hand. It was her hands wrapped around his cock now, her thumb rubbing the head, teasing the slit… she pulled him closer and kissed him deeply and he could feel her stiff nipples brushing against his chest-

Intense pleasure washed over him and he bit his lip hard, trying to muffle his moans as he came.

For several minutes, he just sagged against the bathroom wall, letting the water wash over him, erasing all the evidence of what had just happened. Then he dropped his head into his hands and groaned, mortified with himself. That little fantasy hadn't quite turned out exactly as he'd planned.


	2. Tuesday

TUESDAY

Steven knew something was different the moment he woke up, but he stayed where he was, his eyes screwed shut, hoping he was just having a lucid dream and that he hadn't suddenly grown again. But after ten minutes of silent swearing, he finally accepted the fact that if he didn't change out of his pajamas soon, they were going to strangle him, and he sat up with a sigh.

"Good morning, Steven," Pearl greeted from the lower level. She rummaged in the fridge as she spoke and it was several seconds before she caught sight of his new appearance. "You're in luck, I just stopped Amethyst from devouring every egg in the fridge, would you- GAH!"

"Hello Pearl," he said sheepishly. "Amethyst."

"You look different," Amethyst said mildly. "Did you borrow another one of Lars' dirty magazines?"

"No!" he protested at once.

"Videos?" she suggested.

"No!" he wailed, cheeks burning with embarrassment. "It just happened!"

"Well, whatever the reason, I'm quite sure we don't need to know," Pearl said primly. "Not after last time."

Last time had indeed been a hugely traumatic experience all round. The gems had all panicked, convinced his growth spurt was a shapeshifting mistake, until he'd been forced to confess that Lars had slipped him a nudey mag and the pictures had kicked puberty into action. Pearl had promptly burned it in disgust. But he'd given into his urges several times since then, and nothing had happened. Perhaps it was because he'd been fantasizing about somebody in particular, he thought to himself. Not that he had any intention of ever telling anyone.

Thankfully, after last time, his father had given him some emergency drawstring pants and an assortment of t-shirts in every size, so once he'd managed to extract himself from his pajamas, he dressed and sat down to eat the scrambled eggs Pearl had prepared for him. "So, what are you guys up to today?" he asked.

As he spoke, Garnet stepped out of the Temple doorway. "We're going to go to the Sea Shrine and-" She stopped and raised her shades to look at him. "You've grown."

"Yes, and we're not asking why," Pearl said at once.

"Garnet probably already knows why, Amethyst said slyly, but Garnet shook her head.

"I told you before, now Steven's getting older, he needs his privacy. I don't look into his future now unless absolutely necessary. Anyway," she continued, "as I was saying, we're going to ask Lapis to divert the water so that we can retrieve the other hourglasses and put them somewhere safe. Some of them may have their own magical powers."

"Oh. Cool," Steven commented.

"Yeah, we were going to ask if you wanted to come with, but I guess you gotta go get yourself some new clothes," Amethyst added.

He glanced down at himself and sighed. The mission did sound interesting, but Amethyst was right. Even his sandals were too small now. Besides, he reminded himself, he had other plans today. He finished his breakfast and began composing a message to Peridot to ask what time she was planning on coming over, when Lapis arrived.

"Hi Steven," she greeted. "Is that a different shirt?"

"In a manner of speaking," he admitted. His phone beeped, but he waited until the other gems had all warped away before he dared check it, in case any of them saw the previous messages on the screen.

 _Let me know when the others have left. :)_

 _All clear, they just left now_ , he texted back.

She responded at once. _I'll be there shortly_. Sure enough, less than a minute later, the warp pad lit up and Peridot appeared. "I thought about coming when Lapis did," she began, "but I didn't want to risk-" She stopped and frowned. "You've grown."

"Yes, I had noticed," he said mildly. "Do you want to come clothes shopping with me?"

Peridot's eyes lit up at once. "Yes please! Oh!" She snapped her fingers. "I have an idea!" Without bothering to explain any further, she darted up the stairs to his room and started rummaging through his dresser. Steven had long since given up questioning how she knew exactly where all his clothes were kept, but when she triumphantly held one of his old t-shirts aloft, his curiosity was piqued.

"You know I don't mind you borrowing my shirts, but can I just ask why? I mean," he added, looking her up and down. "You're already wearing clothes."

"Wearing clothes belonging to your significant other is a sign of intimacy," Peridot rapidly explained, her words slightly muffled as she turned her back on him and pulled her plain grey tee over her head. "Me wearing your shirt, coupled with your unexpected growth, will convince people that our relationship is real."

"Huh. Good point." He waited for her to put the shirt on, and then they both stepped outside and headed into Beach City.

Unfortunately, being a tourist town meant that while the beach part of Beach City had plenty of souvenir shops and food stalls, there was very little in the way of proper clothing boutiques. Steven did manage to find a pair of sandals, but they were cheap, flimsy things, and he knew he'd need a proper pair of shoes soon. They browsed the t-shirt shop for a little while, but he didn't find anything he really liked the look of. "Maybe we should get Lion and go into town proper," he said eventually.

"All right," Peridot agreed, a little sadly. She would've liked for them to be seen first, but then, she reminded herself, they still had the picnic that evening.

Lion was napping beneath the house, but Steven was very good at bribery by now, and a few minutes later, they were in the mall. "Right." Steven quickly scanned the mall directory. "I need everything. Shoes, pajamas, pants, underwear, a new jacket…"

"Everything except shirts," Peridot commented.

"Actually, I think I might get some new shirts too," he said thoughtfully. "Or at least one to wear on Friday. Show Connie a whole new me."

"Good idea," Peridot said. "Let's start here," she added, pointing at a nearby store. "Their new spring range was just released last week, they have some new pants that should suit your new frame." He slowly tilted his head and looked quizzically at her and she blushed. "I read FashionStyle online."

"You know, that actually doesn't surprise me at all." He took her hand and they began walking towards the store. "You can definitely help me pick something nice to wear."

xxx

A few hours later, all the shopping had been put inside Lion's mane for safekeeping and they sat in a coffee shop for a rest. "Food next then," Steven said, taking a sip of sugary coffee. "That shouldn't take too long, we just need a few bits for me."

"Actually…" Peridot said hesitantly, "I was thinking I would like to try some of the food too. Although I admit, I will need to defer to your greater experience in this-"

"Seriously?" Steven sat up straighter, intrigued. "But I thought you couldn't shapeshift?"

"You are correct there," Peridot explained. "But you - and Amethyst - always seem to enjoy eating so much, and I was curious. So the last time I reformed, I had a go at copying the human digestive system."

" _Seriously!?_ " Steven said again. "But that was like…" He thought hard. "That was over a year ago! Why didn't you _say_? Have you eaten _anything_ yet?"

"Well, as I said yesterday, I was saving it for a special occasion. And," she admitted, looking a little embarrassed, "as I can hardly look inside and check that I got it all correct, I have been somewhat hesitant to actually give it a try in case I got something wrong."

"Oh my gosh!" Steven looked delighted. "This is gonna be great! You're going to love it! We'll have to make some potato salad and buy some chicken and cookies and fruit and ice cream- wait, no, not ice cream, that'll melt. But you gotta try ice cream some time!" he said eagerly. "Do you wanna try some now?"

Peridot smiled, amused by his enthusiasm. "Perhaps another time."

"OK, sure. What about coffee?" He held his cup out. "Do you want a taste-" He suddenly paused as a familiar figure walked past the window, towards the door. Dr. Priyanka Maheswaran. He quickly put the cup down, leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. Peridot didn't resist. In fact, she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss. Steven's brain immediately blanked out and when he finally pulled away, he didn't even think to look at the queue to see if they'd been spotted. "Uh…" He cleared his throat. "Um. Yeah. As I was saying. Coffee?"

"Is that what that taste was?" Peridot grimaced and stuck out her tongue. "Eck. No."

xxx

The gems were still gone when they returned to the beach house, so after Steven had changed into some of his new clothes, he let Peridot put the rest away while he began preparing the food. Then they stepped outside and walked around the beach until they reached a point where they could climb the hill to the lighthouse. It had occurred to Steven that actually, as Ronaldo had already seen them and spoken to him, this outing wasn't strictly necessary. But he kept quiet, because he _really_ wanted to see Peridot eat.

Plus, a small and slightly shameful part of him added, if Ronaldo was watching, he'd probably get to kiss her again.

"How do we know if he's in there?" Peridot asked, gazing up at the lighthouse, almost as if she'd read his mind.

"I don't know," Steven admitted. "It's getting late, so he's probably in there already, but I guess we won't know for sure until it gets dark enough for him to turn on a light. We should just act as if he's watching already."

"OK." Peridot tore her eyes away and scanned the grass, looking for a good spot to sit. "Over here," she decided, and hooked her hand through Steven's elbow as they walked towards the fence. Then they rolled out the rug, placed the basket in the middle and sat down.

"Right. What do you want to eat first?" Steven asked, pulling food and paper plates out. "Chicken? Potato salad? Bread roll? Banana?"

"Uhh…" Peridot looked apprehensively at the options so far. "I'll try a banana."

"Here." Steven broke one off the bunch and handed it over. "Ah! No, not like that!" he hastily added as Peridot raised it to her mouth at once. "You gotta peel it first," he said, taking it back and demonstrating. "I mean, you _can_ eat banana peel, but it doesn't taste good." He held the half-peeled banana out towards her. "Try it now."

She looked even more apprehensive now, but then she took a deep breath, leaned forward and bit the top of the fruit off with her sharp teeth before sitting back and chewing thoughtfully. "It's sweet," she commented after she'd swallowed it.

"But do you like it?" Steven asked.

"I don't know yet." She took another bite, and Steven took a bite himself, just in case Ronaldo was watching. "But I think so."

"Try some chicken next," he offered, holding out a tub of chicken legs. Then he thought better of it and pulled a piece of meat off of the bone. "Here. You don't eat the bones."

She opened her mouth and after a moment of hesitation, he raised the meat to her lips and fed her. He felt her tongue dart out and brush against his fingertips, and he shivered. Somehow feeding her was a bit sexier than he'd intended. "Uh, and then there's the potato salad and bread," he croaked. "They can be eaten as they are."

"OK," she said agreeably, and reached for the container of potato salad. Steven chewed on the rest of the chicken leg and watched as she dipped a spoon into the tub and raised it to her mouth. Then her expression twisted into one of disgust. "Ack! Eugh!" Her mouth dropped open and she flapped a hand in front of her face, desperate to rid herself of the horrible sensation but well aware that spitting was not socially acceptable. Or romantic. "'Thevan! He'p meh!"

Steven laughed and handed her a napkin. "Spit it into that," he advised. "And have a drink of water."

Peridot gratefully spat out the chunk of slimy potato and wiped her tongue for good measure before she took a long drink from the bottle of water he handed her. "Thank you. That was… _not_ good."

"Sorry, that was probably the mayo. It's an acquired taste. Here, have some bread," he said, and handed over a crusty roll. "Bread's pretty safe."

She decided she liked the bread and the chicken, so they ate together in companionable silence for several minutes, occasionally feeding bites to each other. Then they lay back on the rug, side by side, and watched the sky turn pink and purple.

"Thank you, Steven," Peridot said quietly, tilting her head up to look at him. "I enjoyed that."

"So did I," he confessed. "Sorry again about the potato salad though."

She laughed at that. "It's not your fault. In the future, I expect I'll discover other foods I don't enjoy."

"Like sprouts," Steven said at once, and shuddered. " _Nobody_ likes sprouts. Not even Amethyst."

"I shall definitely bear that in mind," she said. The she rolled over slightly and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Steven saw a light flicker from the direction of the lighthouse. He didn't dare turn to check his suspicions, instead he turned his body towards her and kissed her lips. "Ronaldo's home," he whispered.

Immediately, Peridot's eyes lit up with mischief. "Then let's give him a show." She kissed him harder, slipping her tongue into his mouth and sliding her hands underneath his new t-shirt. It was a little more than Steven had expected, but he certainly didn't protest. Instead, he worked his knee between her legs and let his own hands creep beneath her shirt in return, stroking the smooth skin just above her waistband. Suddenly she pulled away and scrambled to her feet.

"Peridot?" he asked, a little nervously. Had he gone too far?

But Peridot grinned down at him and held out her hand. "Come on, I have the _best_ idea."

Intrigued, he let her lead him down the hill and onto the rapidly darkening beach until they were just below the lighthouse. "Do you think we can we be seen from here?" she asked, gazing out at the water.

Steven quickly glanced up the cliff to the lighthouse. "I don't know," he admitted. "The angle's a bit weird."

"What about if we were in the water?" she pressed.

"Uh…" He took a step back, still looking up at the lighthouse. "Yeah, that should work. Why?"

"Because…" She smirked, kicked off her sandals and bent over and began unbuttoning her jeans. "We're going skinny dipping!"

"Oh, OK," Steven said, before his brain had finished processing the words. "Wait, what!?"

Peridot kicked her jeans aside and laughed at the stunned expression on his face. "Skinny dipping!" she repeated, tugging her t-shirt over her head and dropping it next to her jeans so that she was dressed in nothing but her panties and bra. "Nude bathing! That should give Ronaldo a shock!"

"Right!" Steven squeaked. He knew he should look away, but his entire body was frozen. Was this really happening? She unhooked her bra and dropped it with the rest of her clothes and he gulped, unable to tear his eyes away from her plump breasts. His imagination had let him down, he realized. Then she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties and he finally managed to muster up the willpower to cover his eyes. He heard the sound of splashing water and then she called out to him.

"Steven! Come on in, the water's lovely!"

He peeked through his fingers, half hoping she'd ducked down into the water, and half hoping she hadn't. Either way, he was half right; the water was up to her thighs and his traitorous eyes were immediately drawn to her crotch. He could just see the protruding lips of her pussy, and he swallowed hard. He was definitely going to have to jump in the water now, because he needed the cold to kill his boner.

He tentatively raised the hem of his shirt, preparing to pull it off, when Peridot suddenly let out a yelp and disappeared under the water. Steven paused in concern. "Peridot?"

The water began bubbling and her head broke through a little further away from the shore. "Steven! Help-"

She vanished under the water again and Steven's mouth dropped open in horror as bright pink tentacles burst out of the water and headed towards him. "Gyeh!" He quickly summoned his shield and threw it at them, slicing them in half. Then he formed a bubble around himself and ran towards the water's edge. "Hold on, Peridot, I'm-"

"Crystal Gems! Attack!"

Something bounced off of his bubble and the impact knocked him over. He rolled around helplessly for a moment until he thought to dismiss the bubble, and wound up lying on his back in the surf. When he sat up, he saw Lapis push the water aside, revealing an enormous, shocking pink squid-like creature, its tentacles firmly wrapped around a struggling Peridot. Pearl summoned her spear and cut her free, but as soon as she fell to the ground, the limb reformed and wrapped around the elder Crystal Gem instead.

"Oh no you don't!" Amethyst roared. She spin-dashed towards the creature and knocked it over. Garnet immediately jumped into the air and punched it in the face. There was a bang and a puff of smoke, and it vanished, leaving behind nothing but a square, pink gem, which the fusion bubbled and sent away.

"Good work-" Garnet began, but before she could finish her sentence, Lapis let go of the water and the gems were immediately drenched.

"Was that really necessary?" Pearl scolded, picking a piece of seaweed off of her arm with a shudder.

"Yeah," Amethyst added, only her head showing above the water. "You almost drowned me!"

"You don't need to breathe," Lapis pointed out cheerfully. "Anyway, I just thought Peridot might appreciate the cover, seeing as she's naked."

Peridot, who had been trying to creep back to shore unnoticed, blushed and folded her arms across her chest as everybody turned to look at her. "What?" she said defensively.

" _Why_ are you naked?" Garnet asked. Then she shook her head. "Don't answer that."

"No, no, please do," Amethyst said at once. "I'm dying to know."

"I… I thought I saw something in the water," Peridot blustered. "So I decided to check it out."

"So you took off all your clothes?" Pearl asked suspiciously.

"I was wearing jeans!" she retorted. "Do you know how difficult it is to move in wet denim!? Of course I took them off!"

"Riiiiight," Amethyst drawled. "And are your panties made out of denim too?"

Peridot puffed up in outrage. "They're made of _silk_! The seawater would _ruin_ them!" She stomped up the beach in a huff. "Anyway," she called back over her shoulder, "there _was_ something in the water, so I was right, and I don't deserve this interrogation. I'm going home!" And with that, she scooped up the pile of clothing and flounced off in the direction of the beach house.

"Well," Garnet commented. "That certainly was peculiar. And it's been a very peculiar day."


	3. Wednesday

WEDNESDAY

Much to Steven's surprise and relief, the gems seemed to accept Peridot's explanation - either that, or they'd all simply decided they didn't want to know. Either way, none of them asked him any questions, and once he was back at the house, he decided to have an early night. This turned out to be a completely terrible idea, because every time he closed his eyes, he saw Peridot, naked in the water, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it because Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl seemed determined to spend the entire night chatting in the kitchen. At some point though, he must have passed out and he woke up to sunlight streaming in through the windows. He sat up and stretched, feeling his joints pop.

"Hey Steven," Lapis called from the lower level.

"Morning, Lapis," he greeted sleepily. "What are you doing here?"

"We're going back out to the Sea Shrine," she said, waving at the warp pad. "There's still a bunch of hourglasses to collect."

"Huh." Steven thought for a moment. The plan for Wednesday was to take pictures of something interesting, and the Sea Shrine definitely fit the bill. "Maybe I'll join you today."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Garnet said as she stepped out of the Temple. "That place is too dangerous."

"Yeah, yesterday Pearl picked up an hourglass and wound up repeating the same hour fourteen times," Amethyst added as she stepped out as well, with Pearl close behind.

Pearl shuddered. "It wouldn't let me go until I found a favorable outcome. It's fortunate it was me and not Amethyst, she could've been trapped forever."

"And um, Peridot? How is she this morning? Is she going with you?" he asked, trying to sound casual even though he knew perfectly well that Peridot had no intention of setting foot in the Sea Shrine that day.

Sure enough, Lapis shook her head. "When I left the barn, she'd locked herself in the bathroom." She smirked slightly. "I guess she thinks we've seen enough of her for now."

Steven gave an unconvincing laugh and tried not to let that mental image back in his head. "OK, well, I hope none of the hourglasses give you any trouble today."

"Thank you, Steven," Pearl replied, as they all stepped on to the warp pad. "We'll see you later. Bye!"

Steven watched them all disappear, checked his phone for new messages (one, from Peedee, with further details for Friday's double date) and then fell back on to his bed and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what to do next. There were plenty of interesting gem sites around the world, but the problem was, he was pretty sure Connie had already seen them all by now, and she was hardly likely to be impressed by a photograph of the geode or the strawberry battlefield.

Besides, Lapis's comment was worrying him a little. He hadn't taken Peridot's concerns seriously the day before because she really was exceptionally clever, but she was right in that there was no way to actually check her digestive system without eating. While it was possible she was just hiding from Lapis (or even using the toilet for its intended function), it was also possible that she'd put something in the wrong place and now her liver had exploded.

That troubling thought propelled him out of bed, and he quickly changed into his clothes and without even bothering with breakfast, he hopped onto the warp pad and headed for the barn. "Peridot?" he called out as he pushed the door open. "Are you all right?"

He heard scuffling noises coming from the upper area of the barn and a moment later, Peridot peered over the edge. "Steven?" she said in surprise. "What are you doing here? You were supposed to text me."

"Lapis said you locked yourself in the bathroom," he explained, climbing up the ladder to join her. "And I remembered you said you were worried you got something wrong, so I thought I'd better check."

"Oh, no, I'm fine," she reassured him. "That was just… you know." She blushed. "The usual bathroom necessities."

Steven grinned. "I think she thought you were avoiding her."

"Yes, that's true also," she admitted. She sighed and looked down at the floor of the barn. "Steven, I wish to apologize for my abrupt departure yesterday evening. I realize I left you in an awkward situation, and I hope the gems didn't ask you too many questions."

"It's OK, I understand. You had a wardrobe malfunction going on," he teased. "But don't worry, the gems didn't say anything. I think they've decided to keep doing that thing where they just ignore stuff they don't want to think about."

"Of course," Peridot muttered, "just as I was walking away, it occurred to me that I could've just phased on my default outfit while nobody was looking. Perhaps I've become too accustomed to wearing human clothing."

"You look nice in human clothing," he said sincerely.

"Really?" She cheered up at once. "So anyway," she said, changing the subject, "what are your plans for today?"

Steven sighed. "I don't know. I know I need to take some pictures, but I don't know what to take pictures _of._ Connie's seen all the gem places I know."

"Well, why don't you take Lion and visit some of the human structures on this planet?" she suggested. "Your species may not be quite up to gem standards - I mean, none of your manmade creations even float! But you've still managed to create many sites of cultural and historic interest- Steven?" She stared at him in bewilderment as he smacked a hand against his forehead and groaned loudly. "Are you all right?"

"Of course! Tourist attractions!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't I think of that!? I could go and see the Statue of Liberty, or the Biggest Ball Of Twine!" His eyes widened as possibilities flooded into his brain. "I don't even have to stay in America! I could visit the pyramids of Egypt, or the Great Wall of China or the canals of Venice or- or- or-" His voice trailed off as his enthusiasm vanished as quickly as it had appeared. All of those places sounded interesting, but he didn't want to visit any of them alone. Half of the fun in visiting new, interesting places was having someone to share them with. "Peridot? Would you come with me?"

"What? Me?" Peridot blinked in surprise. "Where?"

"I don't know! Somewhere! Anywhere!" He flung his arms out for emphasis.

Peridot still looked confused. "But the plan for today was-"

"Change of plan," Steven interrupted. "We'll go and take pictures of interesting things together. Please?" he begged as she still looked uncertain. "It'll be boring on my own."

"Well… I _was_ planning on watching television all day," she said slowly. "But I guess I can reschedule. Very well!" She struck a pose. "I shall accompany you to one of your human places of interest. Just as soon as I've chosen something to wear."

Steven laughed and headed back towards the ladder. "Meet me back at the house. I'm gonna go get some food-" He paused. "I've just remembered, we left the picnic basket up on the cliff last night. I'll have to go and get it, so if I'm not in, that's where I'll be."

"OK, bye." Peridot watched him leave, her lips curling up at the corners as she stared at his butt, and then she dove into her prized collection of clothes to find something that would knock his socks off.

xxx

Peridot hadn't shown up by the time Steven finished his breakfast and filled his backpack with supplies, so he strolled out up to the lighthouse and found the picnic basket where they'd left it. Casting a quick look around to see if Ronaldo was lurking, he packed up the remains of the food and headed back to the house. "Peridot?" he called out as he pushed the door open. "You here yet?"

Peridot put his copy of Sailor Moon back on the little bedside table and stood up. "I'm here." Then she skipped down the stairs, pretending she didn't know that Steven was watching the short hemline of her dress bounce around her thighs. "So what's our destination?"

Steven tore his eyes away from her legs and put the basket on the counter. "Ah, now that's a secret," he said cryptically. He crossed the room and rummaged through the freezer until he found a Lion Licker. The familiar sound of the crinkling wrapper brought the large, pink feline to them, and as he ate the treat, Steven murmured instructions in his ear and then climbed on his back. "You ready?"

Peridot nodded and climbed up behind him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist and rather wishing his backpack wasn't in the way. "Let's go."

Lion roared and jumped into the portal. They flew through interdimensional space for a minute and then emerged on the other side in the middle of a courtyard. People screamed in surprise and scattered as Lion skidded to a halt, but Steven was well used to this reaction by now and ignored them as he slid off of Lion's back and helped Peridot down. "Recognize it?" he asked as she stared around in wide-eyed amazement.

Peridot looked around again, taking in the enormous, beautiful palace and the anachronous glass pyramid but still not quite able to believe she was actually _there._ "The Louvre!?" she gasped. "Oh! Steven!"

"I know how much you like your meep morps," Steven explained, taking another, slightly melted Lion Licker out of his backpack and handing it over to Lion. "So I thought, why don't we go and visit the home of one of the most famous morps in the world?"

She let out a happy squeak of delight and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him so hard she almost broke something, and then she grabbed his hand and began pulling him towards the pyramid. "Come on, come on!"

"Wait!" Steven pulled his hand free. Peridot stumbled to a halt, looking a little uncertain, but then he simply pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it up. "Say 'meep morps!'"

Peridot laughed and let him take the picture, and then they walked hand-in-hand towards the museum entrance. It didn't occur to either of them that it was no longer necessary.

xxx

Even though Steven wasn't as interested in art as Peridot, he still found the museum fascinating and the two of them spent a most enjoyable afternoon looking at the paintings and sculptures until the announcement came that the museum would soon be closing. "Wow, already?" Steven said in surprise. "We've only been here a couple of hours."

"There must be some sort of time differential," Peridot mused as they began heading towards the exit.

"Oh, right. Time zones." Steven opened his phone browser to check the actual time. "Huh. It's almost ten here. I didn't realize it was so late."

"I suppose we should head back to the Temple then," Peridot said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

"Yeah…" Steven stared at his phone screen a moment longer. "Or we could go somewhere else?" He frowned slightly. "Most of Europe is night now though. I guess we could go to Vegas? I kinda wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, they've got a little one there."

Peridot scanned the courtyard, a troubled frown on her face. "Uh, Steven? I don't think we're going to Vegas."

Steven lowered his phone and stared at the plinth with the statue of Louis XIV where they'd left Lion. It was immediately obvious that Lion was no longer there. "Oh, whaaaaaat!? Lion!" He stomped his feet in frustration. "I thought I'd trained him out of this! Do you think anyone's seen him?"

"He's fairly conspicuous," Peridot remarked.

Steven nodded and walked over to a nearby guard. "Excuse me, but have you seen a lion? A big, pink lion?"

The guard looked blankly back at him. "I am sorry, a lion? Is that correct? I am not understanding what you ask?"

"May I try?" Peridot stepped forward, Google Translate open on her phone. "Avez-vous vu un lion, un gros lion rose?" she asked, in appallingly accented French.

The guard responded with a torrent of French, which neither of them understood. Apparently he quickly realized this, because he sighed and shook his head. "Pink lion? He is gone, jump through hole."

Steven groaned and bit back a swear. He mumbled a thanks to the guard before turning back to Peridot. "What do we do now? It's night, and we're stranded! We haven't even got passports!"

"We have cell phones," Peridot gently pointed out. "You can call the gems and ask them to come and get us in the Ruby ship."

"Oh, right." Steven calmed down at once and dialed the number. "There's no answer," he said a minute later. "They must still be in the Sea Shrine." He nibbled his lip and thought hard. He could call his Uncle Andy, but it would take hours for him to get to them. He could call his dad and ask him to go to the house and leave a message for the gems, but again, it would be hours until they got back. Unless Lion suddenly came back, they were stuck in Paris for the foreseeable future. "I have my emergency credit card," he said slowly. "And I think Dad would agree that this counts as an emergency. So we'll book a hotel room for the night and try the gems again later. It's only like, four back home, so they might not be back for hours, and we can't just hang out here in the dark."

"That sounds like a logical solution to our predicament," Peridot agreed, and so they began walking along Rue de Rivoli in search of a place to stay. Of course, as they were so close to a popular tourist destination, they were spoilt for choice, but Steven steered clear of the closest ones, knowing the prices would be much higher - even though his dad still had millions of dollars, he didn't think he'd appreciate a bill for thousands for a hotel room, especially not one day after he'd brought a new wardrobe.

"How about this place?" he suggested, stopping outside an elegant building some minutes later. "This looks nice."

Peridot agreed, and they walked up the steps and inside. At the front desk, it took them a little time to make themselves understood, but the staff were used to foreign tourists and soon they were given the key to a pleasant room containing a chaise-lounge and two chairs arranged around a small table, and a wall-mounted television and a double bed. Steven took off his shoes, dropped his backpack onto the chaise-lounge and tried calling the gems again. "They're still not answering," he complained, and put the phone on the nightstand before he flung himself backwards onto the bed. "How long does it take to bubble a few hourglasses!?"

"I suppose that depends on how many times they get stuck in time loops," Peridot mused, kicking off her own shoes and laying down next to him. "They could've been there for _months_ already."

"Huh." Steven blinked up at the ceiling. "Probably a good thing I didn't go with them. I could've starved to death." He mulled over that for a minute and then sighed and rolled over to face Peridot. "I'm sorry."

"What for?" she asked, genuinely surprised.

"For… getting us stranded in a foreign country?" he answered, surprised by her surprise.

"Are you joking me?" Peridot laughed. "Steven, I've enjoyed every single moment of this day, and there's no gem I'd rather be stranded with than you."

"Awww." Steven smiled. "Thanks, Peri." Then without thinking, he leaned forward and kissed her until his brain gave him a little mental poke to remind him that actually, that wasn't necessary right now. "Oh jeez, sorry!" He pulled away, embarrassed. "I didn't mean to do that."

Peridot smiled softly. "It's OK."

"I guess I just got carried away," Steven continued, hardly hearing what she said.

"It's OK-"

"And I kinda forgot we weren't in Beach Cit-"

Peridot gave up trying to talk, and kissed him, cutting him off mid-word, although his lips continued to move silently. She waited until he stopped, and then pulled back. "Really, it's OK, Steven." She smirked slightly at his confused expression. "I like it when you kiss me."

"Oh." He blinked. He wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, so in the end he just nodded. "Right."

"So…" She gazed up at him and gently stroked his upper arm. "You can kiss me again, if you want to." She licked her lips. "Or… more."

"Really?" His heart leapt with excitement even as a small voice in his head warned him that this wasn't strictly part of the plan. But it was a very small voice and he found it quite easy to ignore, especially when Peridot stopped stroking his arm and reached up to cup his face. This time, they both moved forward meet each others lips in a sweet kiss that quickly turned more intense. Peridot's hand slid from Steven's face to tangle in his curls, pulling him closer. Her lips parted slightly, and he pushed his tongue into her mouth while his hands began to wander over her body, stroking the soft, green skin on her bare legs. One of those legs nudged between his and he couldn't hold back a moan of desire.

But then the little warning voice got louder, and with extreme reluctance, he broke the kiss and moved away a little. "We- we shouldn't be doing this," he croaked.

"Why?" Peridot asked, looking bewildered. "Don't you want to?"

"Ye-es," he admitted. "But it wouldn't be right. I love Connie."

Peridot bit her lip and looked down. "Steven, I really like you. You are a very important person to me, and I want to do this with you," she said, a little awkwardly. "I know you love Connie and I have no illusions that that will change, but…" Her eyes flickered back up to meet his. "She's not your girlfriend _yet_. You wouldn't be doing anything wrong."

Well, Steven had to admit she had a point there. But still… "Are you sure about this?" he pressed.

"I have never been more sure of anything in my life," she said at once. Then she paused. "Actually, that's not entirely true, there have been many things I have been sure about. But yes, I am also sure about this." And just to make her point, she leaned forward and kissed him again.

Reassured, Steven's reservations melted away and he enthusiastically kissed her back. His hand went straight back to her leg and caressed her skin again until he dared slide his hand higher, sliding up underneath the hem of her dress until he reached the lacy edge of her panties. Meanwhile, Peridot traced her fingers around his gem and then pushed his t-shirt up, tugging impatiently at the material until he got the hint and sat up so she could take it off. She moved back in to kiss him again, but he ducked his head out of the way with a laugh, and began kissing a trail down her neck and across her collar. He pushed the straps of her dress and bra aside and kissed her shoulders, but when he ran out of exposed skin, he sat back and grabbed hold of the bottom of the dress. "Can I take this off?"

Peridot nodded at once and raised her arms to make it easier for him and seconds later, the dress sailed across the room and landed on the floor next to Steven's discarded shirt. Then Steven reached out and traced a finger across the swell of her breasts, along the edge of her bra until he reached the center point. "Can I take this off too?" he asked.

Peridot laughed at the hopeful expression on his face. "Yes, you may."

Steven immediately resumed kissing her neck while he fumbled behind her back with one hand, but after several seconds, he admitted defeat and looked over her shoulder to see what he was doing. "This is definitely not as easy as they make it look in movies," he complained.

"You just need to practice," Peridot reassured him cheerfully.

He briefly wondered if that meant she was offering to let him practice with her bras, but then he finally got the damn thing undone and tossed it aside and sat back to admire his handiwork. His shorts suddenly felt a lot tighter; seeing her naked breasts in the twilight the previous evening had been great, but seeing them up close in good lighting was even better. Full and round and tipped with dark green nipples that jutted out slightly as he reached out and cupped one in each hand and stoked his thumbs over them. He lowered his head and gently kissed one nipple before sucking it into his mouth and circling it with his tongue, squeezing and kneading the other breast as he did so, and Peridot let out a little gasp of pleasure. "Ah!"

Steven released her stiffened nipple and smiled, pleased by her reaction. Then he started suckling on the other one and Peridot couldn't stop the lewd moan that escaped her lips. She reached down with slightly shaky hands and stroked his cock through the material of his shorts, smirking with satisfaction when he moaned too, the noise slightly muffled by her chest. Then she quickly unbuttoned his shorts and tugged them down, along with his underpants, and they joined the other discarded clothes scattered across the floor. Now his clothing wasn't in the way, she wrapped her fingers around his erection and squeezed gently and he let go of her nipple with a gasp. "Are you OK? I'm not hurting you?" she asked a little anxiously.

"N-no, it's good," he panted, resisting the urge to thrust up into her hand as her thumb ran lightly over the head of his cock, smearing a drop of pre-cum around. Then she gripped his shaft a little tighter and slowly began to jerk him off.

Steven, wanting to make her feel as good as she was making him feel, reached down and slid his hand into her panties. He rubbed his fingers around the fleshy lips of her pussy, and then gently parted them, feeling her wetness on his fingertips. Peridot gasped, her grip around his cock faltered a little and her hips bucked towards his probing fingers. "Ah!"

"You like that?" he murmured, slowly sliding two fingers into her.

"Yes, that feels so good," she moaned.

He slowly pumped his fingers into her pussy for a few more seconds, but quickly decided her panties were impeding his movements, so he withdrew his fingers and tugged them down until she was able to kick them off. He moved back to resume his foreplay, but Peridot decided she was ready for more and pushed him back onto the bed and straddled his hips. "Ready?" she asked, grabbing his cock and lining the head up with her wet cunt.

"Uh-huh," Steven nodded in response. It hadn't escaped his attention that their position was pretty much exactly what he'd fantasized about in the shower the other night and as a consequence, he didn't think he was capable of anything more articulate than that.

Peridot nodded back, bit her lip and then slowly sank down onto him. She tensed at first, expecting pain, but instead, there was just a very pleasant fullness, and she quickly relaxed. Then she raised her hips, feeling him slide out of her until only the head of his cock was inside her, then lowered herself back onto his lap, a little faster this time. Steven groaned and grabbed her hips, not quite sure if he was trying to make her move faster or slower, only sure that he was loving the feeling of her muscles clenching around him. The next time she moved up and down, his hips rose to meet hers and she cried out in pleasure.

They continued to fuck in that position for several minutes, Peridot enjoying the power of being in control and Steven enjoying the sight of her undulating belly and bouncing tits, which he occasionally reached up to grope. But Peridot's legs started to get tired, so she stopped bouncing and leaned forward a little as she started grinding instead, pleased to find that the new angle increased the stimulation on her clit, sending little sparks through her body. Steven could feel the pleasure building up inside him and he grabbed her ass as he fucked her harder. "Peri… I'm close…" he panted.

Peridot immediately reached down and started rubbing her clit. It didn't take long, she was already wound up so tight that her sudden orgasm actually took her by surprise. "A-ah! Steven!" she cried out, grabbing blindly at him with her free hand as her body spasmed uncontrollably. Steven felt the inner walls of her pussy clutching at him, and with a wordless cry, he came too. A moment later, Peridot collapsed onto his chest, and she lay there for several seconds, panting heavily. "That… was amazing," she said, when she finally managed to gather up the strength to speak.

Steven chuckled and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "It really was. Thank you."

She smiled down at him and pushed his sweaty hair off of his face. "Thank _you_."

They lay there together for a little longer, and then Peridot sighed and rolled off of him onto the bed, wincing slightly as she felt sticky fluid ooze out of her when he withdrew. But they both felt too lazy and content to get up and clean themselves up, and minutes later, they were both fast asleep.


	4. Thursday

THURSDAY

Steven was the first to wake up, chilled by the cool night air on his naked body. For several seconds, he just blinked sleepily, wondering where he was, then he became aware of the arm draped over him, and it all came back to him. Paris. Peridot. He leaned over and grabbed his phone from the nightstand and checked the time. Two-thirty in the morning, which meant it was eight-thirty back home, and he might finally be able to get a response from the Crystal Gems. He unlocked the screen and brought up Garnet's contact details, and then hesitated, suddenly aware that it might be wise to wash first.

He rolled over, intending to wake up Peridot, but found himself just staring at her sleeping face instead. There was a serene smile on her face and her hair was mussed up, with sweaty curls forming around her face, and all the pointy bits had gone floofy. His phone was still in his hand, and he was sorely tempted to take a photograph of her. But that might be a little creepy, he realized. Even more creepy than watching her sleep, so instead he just gently shook her shoulder. "Peri… wakey wakey…"

Peridot's eyes snapped open and she sat up, clearly disorientated. "Was I asleep? It's a very peculiar sensation," she continued before he could answer. "You really do that every night?"

"I like sleep," Steven said cheerfully. "I like to close my eyes and think happy thoughts to sustain me throughout the night." And as he said that, it occurred to him that he was going to be sustained for quite a few nights now, and he smiled widely. "Speaking of night," he continued, holding his phone up, "it's getting pretty late back home, so I'm gonna have a shower and try calling the others again."

"A shower?" Peridot smirked and stroked his chest. "Do you want company?"

Steven considered that very carefully for all of 0.2 seconds. "Absolutely." He bounced to his feet and grabbed her hand and the two of them made their way into the surprisingly spacious bathroom. Steven stepped into the shower and fiddled with the controls, while Peridot examined the little bars of soap and teeny bottles of shampoo and shower gel lined up on the sink. "All right," he said once he'd managed to find the point where the water wasn't arctic cold or warmed by the very fires of hell. "Come on in."

Peridot stepped into the shower next to him and sighed happily as the warm water soothed her aching muscles. After a few seconds, she opened the little bottle of shower gel she brought in with her, but before she could make a move to use any of it, Steven took the bottle from her hands. "Let me take care of you now," he said softly.

"What do you mean?" She looked up at him in mild confusion.

He leant down and gave her a quick peck on the lips. "I noticed you were kinda doing all the work back there-"

"I would hardly describe it as work," Peridot began to protest, but Steven cut her off with another kiss.

"Shh," he scolded, and squirted a blob of gel into his hands. "Just relax and enjoy yourself. And turn around so I can wash your back."

Peridot gave in and turned around. Immediately she felt Steven's hands on her shoulders, rubbing small circles on her skin, working out the knots in her muscles and she hummed with pleasure. "Mmmm, that's nice."

"I have healing hands as well as healing spit," Steven joked, leaning down and kissing her neck.

"Really? Is that a new power?" Peridot asked, turning her face towards him.

"No, I'm just joking," he quickly explained.

"Oh." She laughed as she finally got the joke. "Well, your hands do feel very good," she said, feeling his fingers slide down to her hips. "Perhaps you do have some form of healing touch after all."

Steven smiled and lowered his hands to grab her ass, squeezing the soapy, slippery cheeks and gently pulling them apart so he could rub a thumb against her little, puckered hole. Peridot inhaled sharply and pushed back against him, but he moved his hands away and reached up to cup her tits. "Then let me know if anything hurts," he murmured in her ear, and his warm breath made her shiver, desire pooling in her belly.

"Perhaps my breasts are a little painful," she said coyly, leaning back against him and rubbing her butt against his growing erection. Steven grinned and let go of her for a second. "Wha- Steven!" she complained, but then he squirted a little more gel into his hands and reached back around her to rub the slippery liquid onto her tits. "Ah, yes, that feels good."

"And how about here?" he asked, sliding his hands down to her belly.

"Yes, I like that," she cooed happily. "But," she added, turning her face and blinking up at him through the water with wide-eyed innocence, "there's a terrible ache in my pussy. Could you take care of that for me?"

Steven quickly washed the remaining shower gel off of his hands; experience had taught him that it didn't make a very pleasant lubricant. Then he reached down and cupped her pussy, teasing her labia with his fingertips. "Is that any better?"

"No," she whined, wriggling in his grasp and trying to get him to properly finger her.

"Oh no," he said in a deadpan tone. "My powers of healing touch have failed me." Then he spun her around and nudged her legs apart. "I guess I'm going to have to use my powers of healing spit instead." He dropped to his knees and ran his hands up her thighs before he grabbed her ass again and pulled her forward a little until she was close enough for him to kiss her mons; partly to tease her, mostly to make sure the position wasn't going to drown him. Once he was comfortable, he flicked his tongue out and gave her clit a quick lick, then placed a few kisses on her inner thighs. "How about now?" he teased.

"Steven…" Peridot whimpered, grabbing hold of his curls but valiantly resisting the urge to just push his face into her cunt. He was in charge this time. "Please…"

Steven finally took pity on her and put his mouth back on her pussy. He parted her folds and licked the entire length of her slit before curling his tongue into her. Peridot squirmed and moaned and gripped his hair tighter, and Steven had to grab her butt harder to keep her in place while he continued to eat her out for several minutes. And while his hands were there, he spread her cheeks and rubbed his thumb against her asshole again, and Peridot cried out and bucked her hips against his face.

But with his hands busy holding her in place, he couldn't reach down to give his own erection any attention, so he pulled away and stood up again, pulling her in for a deep kiss before she could vocalize her annoyance. Then, to her delight, he picked her up and carefully lowered her onto his cock and began to fuck her against the back wall of the shower. She wrapped her arms and legs around him at once and let out little gasps and squeals of pleasure every time he thrust into her. Then Steven felt her body stiffen around him. Her legs tightened, pulling him in deeper, and her fingernails dug into his back as she came. He wasn't far behind; he tightened his own grip on her as her muscles relaxed, and fucked her until he came as well, crying out her name.

For several seconds afterwards, he half-slumped against the wall, doing his very best not to squash Peridot in the middle even though she seemed find the predicament more amusing than anything else, judging from the smirk on her face. Eventually he regained enough strength to straighten back up, and he pulled out of her and placed her back on the floor. "You were- whoa!" He lunged forward and caught her just as her legs gave way. "Are you OK?"

"Y-yeah," Peridot said, struggling back to her feet in embarrassment. "I think my muscles are just temporarily weakened from all of our…" She blushed slightly. "Activity."

Steven nodded in understanding. His own legs felt kind of unsteady too. "Wait a second, I'll give you a hand back to the other room," he offered, and stepped out of the shower and wrapped a fluffy towel around his waist. He picked up another towel and waited for her to shut off the water, and then when she'd wrapped it around herself, he swept her up into his arms and carried her back into the main room and deposited her on the chaise-lounge, before sinking into one of the other chairs himself. "Is that-"

Before he could finish the question, his cell phone rang. He groaned, really not in the mood to move again, but he recognized the tune as the one he'd assigned to Garnet, so with extreme reluctance, he stood up and staggered over to the nightstand. "Hello?"

"Steven."

"Ye-es?" Steven replied, not quite sure if she was checking it was him or just stating his name. "It's me."

"Where are you?"

Steven laughed a little nervously. "That's uh, that's actually a very funny story! See, I thought it would be fun to take Peridot to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, and um…" He closed his eyes briefly and then just blurted out the truth. "Lion vanished and now we're stranded in Paris and it's the middle of the night."

"I see." There was silence on the other end of the line, and then Garnet spoke again. "Are you in a safe place?"

"Yeah." Steven nodded as he spoke. "I booked us into a hotel for the night."

"Good. Send me the address and we'll come and get you." And with that, Garnet hung up.

"OK," Steven said, more to himself than anyone else, and he typed the name and address of the hotel into a text message and sent it. Then he stared down at the screen with a small frown as he belatedly recalled just how fast the Ruby ship could travel. "In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have sent that until after we got dressed."

Peridot, who was half-asleep on the chaise-lounge, forced her eyes open and sat up. "When are they due to arrive?"

"Uh…" Steven's phone bleeped to signal an incoming message. He read it, and then sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "In about four minutes."

Peridot groaned loudly and rolled off the chaise-lounge onto the floor. "Noooo…"

"Three of those minutes are going to be spent dragging the ship out of Amethyst's room," he continued apologetically. "So… we should probably hurry up."

Peridot groaned again, but as she had absolutely no desire for the other gems to see her naked again, she reluctantly climbed to her feet and began hunting for her underwear. The two of them quickly got dressed and ran down to the lobby to check out, and Steven was just handing the keys back when the door opened and Garnet walked in. "Ah, good, you're ready." She nodded her head outside. "Come on. We're double parked."

They followed Garnet out of the hotel and onto the ship, trying very hard to look completely innocent. Peridot bit the inside of her cheek and tried to walk normally, and when Steven found himself reaching out to take her hand, he caught himself and gripped the straps of his backpack a little harder. "Oh, hello, you two," Pearl greeted them when they entered. "Did you have a nice time?"

"Uh-huh," Peridot squeaked guiltily.

"The Louvre was fascinating," Steven gabbled. "We saw the Mona Lisa, and Victory, and the Venus de Milo-"

"If you put those last two together, you get an entire woman!" Peridot blurted out.

The three Crystal Gems all stared at her in bemusement and Peridot felt a bead of sweat run down her back. Or it could've been a drop of water from her wet hair, she wasn't entirely sure. Steven quickly leapt to her rescue. "Victory has no head, and Venus has no arms," he said rapidly.

Amethyst shook her head. "Man, I do _not_ get art."

Before anyone could explain that the missing body parts had probably not been intentional, Pearl stepped forward and seated herself in the pilot's seat. "Is everyone ready?" she asked, turning to face the others. Everybody nodded, and she spun back to the controls. "Then let's go home. Clearly we've all had a very busy day and I really don't want to get stopped and questioned by the French authorities."

xxx

Once they were back at the beach house, Peridot warped back to the barn and Steven dropped his backpack on the floor and yawned. "Sorry about that. Thanks for bringing us back," he said to the other Crystal Gems.

"That's quite all right, Steven," Pearl said with a bright smile. "But perhaps it's time I taught you to properly fly the ship instead of you relying on that creature."

"Lion's usually so well behaved," Steven mused. "I wonder where he went?"

"He's under the house," Amethyst said at once. "Maybe he just got homesick. Or regular sick," she added. "Like, don't they eat frogs and snails in France? Eesh!" She shuddered dramatically. "And people say _I'm_ a freaky eater.

"Seriously!?" Steven exclaimed.

Amethyst nodded vigorously. "Yeah, dude, didn't you like, grab a McFrog burger or anything while you were there?"

"No, I meant Lion!" Steven stomped towards the door. "I can't believe he was here the whole time!" He bounced down the steps onto the beach, and sure enough, there was Lion, curled up under the deck, apparently asleep. "Lion!"

Lion cracked one eye open and stared at him for a long moment before settling back down to nap.

Steven glared at him for approximately two seconds and then caved. "Aww. I can't stay mad at you." He stepped forward and snuggled his face against the huge animal's fur. "Don't tell anyone," he whispered, "but I wasn't even mad at you to start with. Last night-" He stopped for a moment as the reality of time zones hit him and he realized technically, everything that had happened in that hotel was sort of in the future, in a strange sort of time loop he was about to repeat. Then he decided the time travel technicalities really didn't matter and just made things confusing, and carried on talking. "It was the best night of my life." He stroked Lion's fur and gazed out across the dim ocean. "Did you come back here on purpose so me and Peridot could be together, hmm?"

Lion, of course, didn't respond.

xxx

That night, Steven slept soundly and woke up late in the morning, feeling much refreshed. He stretched happily and picked his phone up to see what time it was. Nine thirty-three in the morning, and he had three new messages from Peridot. He immediately unlocked the phone and smiled at the two next picture messages, one of Peridot in the Louvre doing a victory sign beside the headless statue of Victory, and one apparently of her that morning, in her room in the barn, dressed in a strappy little cropped top and shorts. The third message was a text.

 _I hope you slept well. What time would be optimal for visiting Funland? Xxx_

Steven was unaware of the wide, goofy smile on his face as he immediately composed a text back. _Just woke up! Thought I might do some chores this morning, wanna meet up outside Funland at oneish?_ He paused, wondering whether to add kisses to his text too, and then internally said 'fuck it' and did it anyway. _Xxx_

Moments later, she sent a reply. _Sounds good, I'll see you there. Xxx_

 _See ya! Xxx_ he sent back. Then he changed into some clean clothes, ate breakfast, gave the house a general tidy and began packing up his old clothes to give to Goodwill. Around mid-morning, Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl came out of the Temple and told him about some of the more awful hourglasses that had been in the Sea Shrine, including one that had forced them to relive their worst moments over and over until Lapis managed to smack it out of their hands with a passing shark, and Steven shuddered in horror. "So are you all done there now?" he asked.

"Yup," Amethyst said happily. "Everything's all bubbled and chilling in Pearl's room. So now we're gonna chillax too until G-Squad finds some new monster to ruin my day."

Garnet smiled sweetly and stood up. "Speaking of which, I'm going to meditate in my room. See if I can find a new monster to ruin your day."

Amethyst groaned loudly at this, but Garnet ignored her and vanished into the Temple. Meanwhile, Pearl was rummaging under the sink, and eventually emerged with her arms full of cleaning supplies. "Well, I'm going to do a little tidying up," she said. "I've completely neglected the housework these past few days."

"But I-" Steven began, and then changed his mind. If Pearl wanted to clean the house he'd just cleaned, he was just going to let her go ahead and do it. "I'm about to make some lunch," he said instead. "Just… in case you were intending to do the washing up first."

"I was actually planning to clean the kitchen," Pearl said. "But that can wait." She disappeared into the bathroom instead, and Steven made himself a bowl of mac and cheese and made to leave.

"Whatcha doing?" Amethyst asked, raising herself up onto her elbows.

Steven thought quickly. The last thing he needed was Amethyst inviting herself along for the trip. "Gonna go visit Dad. I should probably warn him about the next credit card bill."

"Oh." She immediately lost interest and fell back onto the sofa. "I thought maybe you were gonna hang out with Peridot again."

"Wh-what?" Steven stammered, taken by surprise. "Why would you think that?"

Thankfully, Amethyst had closed her eyes and failed to notice the guilty look on his face. "Ya know, just, you two have been spending a lot of time together recently, that's all."

"We hang out a totally normal amount of time!" Steven said defensively.

"Uh, last week, you both barricaded yourselves in your room and watched all twelve Star Wars movies in a row," Amethyst countered. "And the week before that, she helped you design and build a full-scale sandcastle on the beach."

"Stupid zoning rules," Steven muttered, remembering how Mayor Dewey had immediately had their castle flattened.

"And the week before that," Amethyst continued as if she hadn't heard, "you took her to the north every day, for like, four days straight, so you could teach her to ice skate, and the week before _that_ , you both just hung out in the barn and read all the Harry Potter books back to back."

"Well, today I'm _just_ going to see my dad," Steven said firmly, and before Amethyst could say another word, he stepped outside and fled. But as he walked along the beach, he realized Amethyst was right. He _had_ been spending an awful lot of time with Peridot over the last few months. But what else was he supposed to do with his time? Corrupted gem sightings were getting rarer and rarer. The Diamonds hadn't sent anybody else to Earth in three years, and they'd caught and bubbled the last of the missing Ruby squad shortly afterwards. And all of his human friends, Connie included, were at school or college. True, he could train with the gems more, or ask them more about gem history, or even enroll in school himself, but he'd much rather have fun with Peridot than do any of those things.

Before he could get deeply introspective about that, he found himself outside the car wash his dad still worked at. As he'd already told Amethyst he was heading there, he stopped for a few minutes and explained about the clothes and the hotel room before continuing on, past the old docks to the Funland Amusement Park.

He was a little early, so while he waited, he browsed some of the touristy booths that were set up outside to take advantage of the Spring Break foot traffic. There was the usual assortment of trashy souvenir clothes, novelty obscene candy, cheap beach toys and sculptures made out of driftwood, but one booth selling sea glass and jewelry caught his eye, and he stopped for a closer look and picked up a necklace decorated with several small stars. Peridot would love it-

His phone bleeped, pulling him out of his thoughts. He pulled it out of his pocket and unlocked the screen, half-expecting to see a message from Peridot, or maybe even Peedee, with more details about the double date.

What he wasn't expecting to see, however, was a message from Connie. _Hi Steven! Peedee told me you and Peridot would be joining us tomorrow, looking forward to it :) feels like I haven't seen you in forever!_

He suddenly felt as though somebody had chucked a bucket of ice-cold water over him. Somehow, despite the fact that this entire week of fake dating had been planned purely to make Connie jealous, he'd barely spared a thought for her since Tuesday. Because he'd been too busy fooling around with Peridot instead. A wave of self-loathing washed over him. Connie deserved better, and if he was ever going to be her real boyfriend, he was going to have to seriously rethink his relationship with Peridot. There could never be any repeat of what had happened in France.

"Steven!"

Peridot's voice jolted him out of his thoughts and a moment later, she glomped onto his arm and beamed up at him with a wide, sunny smile. "I apologize for my late arrival, it took me a little time to evade Lapis. It didn't think it would be wise to let her know exactly where I was going."

"Oh." Steven shook his head, trying to dismiss some of his muddled thoughts. "Right. Well, you're here now," he said feebly.

Thankfully, Peridot didn't seem to notice anything wrong, and simply let go of his arm and linked their hands together instead. "Shall we proceed?"

"Uh, sure." He let himself be pulled over to the ticket booth and brought some tickets. "Where do you want to go first?" He thought back to their plan for the day. Win an enormous toy. Perhaps if they hurried up and got that over and done with, he could cut this date short and go home and brood. "Do you wanna check out the game booths?"

Peridot scanned the attractions thoughtfully. "Not yet. A prize would be awkward to take on any of the rides. We should do those first."

Steven valiantly tried to keep his complete lack of enthusiasm from showing on his face as he also had a quick look around. "How about… the dodgems?" he eventually suggested. Maybe smashing into a few unfortunate tourists would cheer him up.

"OK," she said agreeably, and grabbed his hand again. "That sounds fun."

And at first, it was fun. But after a couple of rides, Peridot finally noticed that Steven didn't appear to be enjoying himself as much as she was. He was quiet and distracted, often staring blankly into space, and sometimes when she spoke to him, he didn't respond, forcing her to repeat herself. And he kept letting go of her hand. The first couple of times, it was just to hand over their tickets, but after a while, she realized she was always the one reinitiating contact.

Apprehension crept over her. She tried to pretend nothing was wrong, but she could hear her voice getting faster and louder as she tried to fill the silence that had fallen between them, and she couldn't seem to keep herself still. Even in the queues for rides, she found herself fidgeting and bouncing from foot to foot. She knew she was being annoying, but she couldn't seem to stop. It was a relief when Steven brought up the booths again. She could throw things at a target and get rid of some of her nervous energy.

"How about this one?" Steven said, letting go of her hand again as they stopped beside a game that involved throwing balls at a stack of tin cans.

"Sure!" she said, too loudly. "I'll go first." She stepped forward and handed Mr Smiley a ticket and received three balls in return, which she then threw as hard as she could, not actually caring if they hit anything.

Much to her surprise, she knocked over an entire pyramid of cans. "Congratulations!" Mr Smiley exclaimed, and waved a hand at the back wall. "You get to pick a prize!"

"Steven? Do you want the prize?" She turned to look up at him, only to catch him zoning out again. He hadn't even noticed that she'd won.

"Sorry, what?" he asked.

"Do you want the prize?" she said again, gesturing desperately at the booth. "I knocked over all the cans and won a prize and I thought maybe you'd like to choose? I mean, if you want to, you don't have to-" She took a deep breath and forced herself to stop talking and smile.

"Oh." He blinked and took another look at the booth. "No, that's OK, Peri. It's your win, you choose."

Her smile went wobbly, and she pointed randomly at the prizes. "That one."

Mr Smiley narrowed his eyes, trying to work out what she was pointing at. "You mean the green unicorn?" he checked.

"Yeah, whatever," Peridot said, half-heartedly. Why not. It wasn't like it mattered. She took her unicorn and stepped aside so Steven could play. "Your turn," she said loudly, just in case he'd zoned out again.

Steven took another look at the wall of prizes and shook his head. "Actually, I think I'd like to try the dart toss," he said, pointing to the next booth. For what seemed like the first time all afternoon, he smiled. "Look, one of the prizes is a pink lion."

"Oooh, that's a good choice," Mr Smiley said enthusiastically, hopping over the edge of the booth and into the next one. "But you gotta score more than 100 in only five darts to win a prize like that!"

"I'm a pretty good shot with my shield," he boasted, taking the darts from Mr Smiley. "Bring it on."

Peridot leaned on the edge of the booth and watched as Steven aimed the dart and threw it. To both of their surprise, it curved in midair, and landed in the three instead of the twenty he'd been aiming for. Steven frowned and adjusted his aim, but his next shot was no better, only ending up a little higher. Beginning to grow annoyed, he aimed a little to the side, landing on the seventeen, but it was too little, too late and his final score was a dismal forty.

"Oooooooh, bad luck!" Mr Smiley said cheerfully. "But you do win a slinky!"

Steven scowled in frustration. "I'll try again." He handed over another ticket and tried again. His score was even worse the second time around. "One more try!" he snapped. This time, well aware that the game was somehow rigged, he stopped aiming for the twenty and randomly chose other high numbers, but even a double thirteen wasn't enough to get his score above fifty, and he could feel himself losing his temper. "Ah come on! This is rigged!"

Mr Smiley heard this complaint at least ten thousand times a day and was completely unperturbed. "It's not rigged, it's just difficult. Lions aren't cheap," he said mildly. "If I gave one out for every low score, I'd go out of business."

Steven opened his mouth to argue that there was a difference between 'difficult' and 'how stupid do you think I am, the damn board obviously has magnets on the back' but paused when he felt Peridot's hand on his arm. "Try one more time," she said quietly.

He grumbled under his breath, but did as he was told. This time, his first dart landed solidly in the twenty. Then the second one. Suddenly suspicious, he watched Peridot out of the corner of his eye as he threw the third dart, and sure enough, her hands twitched, just below the edge of the booth and out of sight of Mr Smiley, and once again, the dart landed in the twenty. "Don't do that," he said sharply.

Peridot blinked, taken aback by his tone. "I-I just thought- I wanted to help," she stammered, as Mr Smiley looked at them both in confusion.

"Well don't! I don't _want_ your help!" he snapped. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back, but it was too late. Peridot's eyes widened with hurt and she took a step back. "Peri-" he began, reaching out to her.

"Forget it, I don't want the stupid lion anyway," she interrupted, then spun on her heel and disappeared into the crowd.

"Uh oh, trouble in paradise, eh?" Mr Smiley joked. Steven didn't bother responding, and ran after her, and after a couple of seconds, Mr Smiley shrugged and pulled the darts out of the board. If Steven didn't want his prizes, that was fine with him.

xxx

"Peridot!" Steven dodged around a group of slow moving tourists loitering beside the Ferris wheel and turned in a slow circle, looking for any sign of her. Seeing nothing, he moved on. After a couple of minutes, he began to seriously consider the possibility that she'd left completely, but then a gap opened in the crowd and he spotted her sitting on a bench, hugging her knees. He let out a small sigh of relief, and slowly approached her. "Hey," he said softly. "Mind if I sit here?"

Peridot's eye's flickered in his direction and she shrugged. "If you want."

He sat down next to her and opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could say a word, she spoke first. "Steven? Have I done something wrong?"

"No," he said at once. "No, it's not you, it's me." Then he smiled a small, self-depreciating smile, realizing how clichéd that sounded. "Really though, I've been a complete jerk today, I'm sorry. It's just…" He hesitated, trying to think of the best way to phrase things. "Connie sent me a text just before you arrived," he said awkwardly. "It's… kind of been on my mind."

"Oh." Peridot uncurled slightly. She was half tempted to ask what the text had said, but she wasn't sure she'd like the answer, so she kept her mouth shut.

Beside her, Steven sighed heavily. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I haven't been very good company today, have I?"

"No," Peridot said at once. "You _sucked._ " She uncurled some more and leaned her head on his shoulder. "But I forgive you."

Steven couldn't help chuckling at that, and he put his arm around her and gave her a quick squeeze. "In that case…" he began, "would you help me win a toy lion? Please?"

She bit her lip, still a little hesitant after the way he'd yelled at her, but as he did seem to be genuinely remorseful, she relented. "All right."

"Great!" He bounced to his feet and held a hand out to her. "But maybe this time, aim for some other numbers. If I get all twenties, Mr Smiley's gonna get suspicious."

xxx

Fifteen minutes later, they walked away from the booth with a score of one hundred and one, and a large, pink, stuffed lion. "You did good," Steven praised her.

"I did, didn't I?" Peridot said smugly. "So… what should we do now?" She glanced up at him. "We don't have many tickets left, we could leave now if you want."

Steven shook his head. He wanted to try and make up for being such an awful date before they parted company. "Let's get some ice cream," he suggested instead. "And then we could go on the Ferris wheel."

Peridot approved of this plan, so they strolled over to an ice cream truck and brought two cones. It didn't take long for Peridot to decide she liked ice cream, and she consumed the entire thing in less than two minutes, so Steven let her finish his as well while they queued for the Ferris wheel. Soon they were seated and the car slowly rose into the air until they could see across the entire bay. "The view is beautiful from up here," Peridot commented.

Steven nodded in agreement. "You know who else is beautiful? The Temple fusion statue," he teased.

Peridot snickered with laughter and then snuggled up against him. "It really is beautiful though," she murmured. "I'm glad you suggested this ride."

"Mmm." Steven stared across the ocean, deep in thought. "Peridot? Do you love me?" he asked abruptly.

"Of course," Peridot said without hesitation.

"Right," he said slowly. It wasn't exactly the reaction he'd expected, but then he reran the sentence through his head and realized he hadn't been specific enough. "Are you… _in_ love with me?"

This time, he felt her stiffen. "Why do you ask?" she said warily.

 _Shit._ He sighed and bit his lips, feeling guilty. "Do… do you want me to call off the double date tomorrow?" he asked.

"No? Why would you do that?" she said, looking bewildered.

"Because you were right," he tried to explain. "These sort of plans never work. And…" He swiveled around in his seat and looked seriously at her. "I don't want to hurt you."

Peridot frowned. "Steven, as I told you yesterday, I'm well aware that you love Connie and I don't expect that to change because of anything that's happened this week. I'll be fine, I promise. Besides," she continued, seeing that he looked unconvinced, "Connie and Peedee are expecting us to be there tomorrow, and we've put so much work into this charade! It would be completely illogical to throw it all away at this late stage!"

"I don't know…" Steven said hesitantly. He knew that logically, she was right. But he also knew that feelings weren't always logical. "Are you sure?"

"It's just one more day," she pointed out. "We can make it through one more day."

"All right," he relented. "One more day." Then he gave her hand a quick squeeze. "But I mean it, if you decide you want to stop, tell me."

"Yeah, sure," Peridot said vaguely, knowing perfectly well that she had no intention of giving up her final date with him.


	5. Friday

FRIDAY

Aware that he hadn't spent much time with them lately, Steven decided to spend the next morning with the gems. So after he'd had breakfast and showered, he knocked on the door of the Temple and waited to see who emerged first.

A few seconds passed, and then Pearl opened the door and warily peeped out, visibly relaxing when she saw Steven. "Oh, hello, Steven. How can I help you?"

"What are you doing?" Steven asked, trying to look around her into the room beyond because he was pretty sure it wasn't hers.

Sure enough, Pearl shuffled her feet guiltily before stepping aside so he could see into Amethyst's room. "Garnet and I are doing a little tidying," she admitted. "There's some food in here that seems to have become sentient. Again."

"Ew!" Steven took a hasty step backwards before he remembered why he'd knocked on the door in the first place. "Do you want any help with that?"

Pearl glanced back over her shoulder at Garnet as she considered the offer. The other gem nodded, so Pearl stepped aside. "You may want to bubble yourself when we approach it," she warned. "The smell is deeply unpleasant."

"Yippee," he muttered under his breath, but he steeled his nerves and stepped into the room.

Six hours later, they emerged, slightly traumatized, covered in rancid goo and in Steven's case, determined to never eat meat ever again, or at least not for another couple of months. Amethyst was lounging on the sofa, and sat up straight when she saw them. "What happened to you?"

"Your room," Garnet said, staggering forward, "is _vile._ "

Amethyst's eyes widened in horror. "What did you guys do to my room!?"

"We didn't do anything to your room," Pearl said crossly. "We simply removed the revolting piece of flesh-"

Steven gagged. "Excuse me, I'm gonna throw up," he managed to say as he pushed past the bickering gems and fled to the bathroom. When he was done, he stripped off his disgusting clothes and poked his head back around the door. "Garnet? Can you burn these please?"

"Of course." She took them gingerly, careful not to let anything touch her gems, and went back into the Temple, ignoring Pearl and Amethyst, who were still arguing. Steven decided to follow her example and retreated back into the bathroom, where he spent the next forty-five minutes scrubbing himself clean.

When he stepped back out in his nice, clean new robe, Amethyst was waiting, an apologetic look on her face. "Sorry dude," she said, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly. "I put that steak in a marinade and kinda forgot about it. Do you want something to eat?"

"Is it safe?" he asked warily.

"If I leave out the gasoline," she joked. "Nah, but seriously, I can make you a fish pizza better than any of the ones from Fish Stew Pizza if you want."

Steven considered this offer and decided that fish was still OK to eat. "Thanks, that'd be great," he said, and went up to his room to find some clean clothes to put on. He found the new shirt he'd brought for that evening and looked thoughtfully at it before placing it to one side. He didn't want to risk dripping pizza sauce down it, after all. Then he glanced over side of his room to see Amethyst pouring flour into a bowl and frowned. He hadn't realized she was going to make the entire thing from scratch. "Uh, Amethyst? How long is that going to take?"

"I dunno, half an hour, maybe?" She shrugged. "I mean, pizza dough isn't like bread dough, I don't have to leave it to rise for an hour or anything."

Steven relaxed. "That's all right then. It's just, Connie's coming back today," he explained. "We're going to the movies later. So I just wanted to be sure I had time to eat first."

"Oooooooh, big date with Connie!" Amethyst teased as she added the yeast, salt and water to the flour and began to mix it together. "How is she, anyway? Feels like ages since we saw her."

It _had_ been ages. Now Steven thought about it, it had been at least a couple of months since he'd last seen Connie, and although they occasionally talked on the phone, it was difficult sometimes to find the time to have a proper conversation. Most of their recent communication had been through text messages, and even those had been few and far between. "She's had a lot of work to do for classes," he said. "So we haven't been able to talk much. But she's looking forward to a break."

"Cool. Well, you guys have fun." Amethyst went back to making the pizza dough, and Steven finished getting dressed. When he was done, he switched on the TV and watched half of an old Lonely Blades movie to kill time. After that, the pizza was consumed (and it really was better than Fish Stew's pizza), his top was changed, his teeth were brushed and he was off.

They'd all arranged to meet at Peedee's, and Connie, the only one of them with a drivers permit, would then drive them all to the cinema. His phone bleeped just as he was approaching Beach Citywalk Fries, and he pulled it out of his pocket to see a message notification from Peridot. He suddenly felt queasy with nerves. Had she changed her mind about coming? Because while he wouldn't blame her if she decided not to show up, there was absolutely no way he was going to be a third wheel. But thankfully, the message simply said that she'd be there shortly, so he put the phone away and walked down the side of the restaurant to the house attached, and knocked on the door.

"Hi Steven," Peedee greeted, opening the door wide and standing aside so Steven could come in. "Where's Peridot? I thought she'd be with you."

"She's on her way," Steven said.

Peedee nodded. "So's Connie, she texted me a couple of minutes ago to say she was just leaving. Do you want a soda or something while we wait?"

"Sure, that'd be great." He followed Peedee down the hallway and into the sitting room, and his heart sank when he saw who was in there.

"Hello, Steven." Ronaldo narrowed his eyes. "I see the eco-terrorist isn't with you."

Steven didn't bother dignifying that comment with a reply. Next to him, Peedee scowled. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here," Ronaldo said simply.

"This is the first time you've been home in two weeks," Peedee objected. "Dad's talking about turning your room into an office." Then he remembered his guest and flushed. "Come on, Steven. Sorry about that," he continued as they made their way to the kitchen. "I really thought he'd be up at the lighthouse."

"It's OK, it's not your fault," Steven reassured him.

He'd just popped open a can of apple soda when they heard a faint knock at the door, and Peedee jumped. "I'd better go and get that before Ronaldo does."

They were just in time, and almost flattened Ronaldo as they flung the door open to reveal Peridot, dressed casually in a flared skirt and lacy top, and a very nervous smile. "Hello," she said weakly.

"Hey." Steven grinned back at her. "Come on in."

"Can I get you a drink or anything?" Peedee asked, leading her down the hallway and carefully blocking Ronaldo from view.

"I'd like a glass of water, please," Peridot replied, if only because holding it and drinking it would be less awkward than standing around and doing nothing.

"No problem, I'll be right back." Peedee vanished back into the kitchen, leaving them alone, awkwardly standing around and doing nothing.

"You OK?" Steven asked, taking hold of her hands and breaking the silence.

Peridot exhaled loudly and lowered her head. "I must admit, I am a little more apprehensive than I'd anticipated," she confessed.

"Me too," Steven said, lowering his voice a little as Ronaldo reentered the room and openly stared at them. "I almost-"

There was another knock at the door and he froze rigid. Then without thinking, he pulled his hands free and quickly followed Ronaldo out of the room, hovering slightly behind the other young man as he opened the door for Connie.

"Thank you, Ronaldo," she said politely, stepping forward. Then she caught sight of Steven and her eyes lit up. "Steven!" She rushed forward and hugged him for a second, then pushed him away again. "Oh my goodness, look at you! You've grown!" Then she laughed a little self-consciously. "Sorry, didn't mean to sound like an old grandma there."

"If you promise not to pinch my cheeks, I'll forgive you," he said solemnly.

"I promise," she said, equally solemn. Then they both laughed and walked back into the sitting room, where Peedee and Peridot were waiting. "Hi, Peridot," Connie said warmly, giving her a small wave. Then she caught sight of Peedee and her smile widened. "Peedee!" She crossed the room and gave him a hug, one that Steven noticed lasted considerably longer than the one she'd given him.

"So, shall we get going then?" Peedee suggested, once they parted.

"Actually, can I use your restroom quickly?" Connie asked.

"Sure. It's just off the kitchen," he said, pointing towards the room in question.

"I should probably finish this soda before we go too," Steven mumbled as Connie walked out, suspecting that Dr. Maheswaran wouldn't approve of the consumption of food or drink in the car. He tipped the can back and slurped noisily, dragging out the process for as long as possible so he wouldn't have to talk to anyone.

"All right, I'm ready," Connie said a minute later, stepping back into the room.

Both Peedee and Steven sagged in relief. "Let's go then," Steven said, tossing his empty can into the trash. He was halfway towards the door when he realized something was wrong. "Where's Peridot?"

xxx

The moment Connie knocked on the door, Peridot wished she'd taken Steven up on his offer to call off the date. Despite telling herself that she could handle seeing Steven pine over another girl, the reality was that it was a lot more difficult when they were both in the same room instead of on opposite sides of the state. There was actual pain in her chest when she watched him stare at Connie and Peedee as they hugged, and she had to force herself to close her eyes and turn away.

"Hey. Can I talk to you for a second?"

Ronaldo's hushed voice caught her attention and she opened her eyes warily. "Why?"

"I just wanted to ask you something," he said, staring at her with an expression of wide-eyed innocence that only made her more suspicious.

But Steven was still staring at Connie and it still hurt, so she sighed and nodded. "What?"

"Not here," he said at once, glanced around at the others. "Follow me."

Peridot rolled her eyes in exasperation, but she put her glass of water down and allowed Ronaldo to lead her out of the room, up a flight of stairs and into another room. "What?" she asked again as he closed the door behind them.

"I wanted to talk to you about your breeding experiments-" he began.

Peridot interrupted him with a loud groan. "Ugh! Are you joking me!?" she exclaimed. "I'm not doing any breeding experiments on Steven!"

"No, I know," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "Your relationship is fake. What I wanted to say," he continued before she could react to that statement, "is that as the human-gem ambassador of this planet, I instead offer myself as a noble sacrifice for your experiments."

Peridot gaped at him in stunned disbelief. "I'm sorry, _what!?_ "

He struck a dramatic pose. "I am in peak physical health, and I offer my body to you to do with as you wish." He sighed a long, deep, martyred sigh. "I know it will be a long and arduous process, but for the good of humankind, it is a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

"Ew." Peridot wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Ronaldo narrowed his eyes, looking rather insulted. "There's no need to take that tone. I know you want me, I've seen you flaunting yourself, trying to get my attention."

"I have done no such thing!" Peridot objected, outraged.

"Oh, really?" he said snidely. "Tuesday evening ring any bells? When you took off all your clothes on the beach, knowing that I was watching? You _wanted_ me to see you, to see that you were anatomically correct." He suddenly reached out and flipped up her skirt, and she let out a startled yelp. "You-"

Something hit him on the back on the head at the same time as her knee slammed into his groin, and he folded in on himself like a punctured bouncy castle. Peridot stepped back and glared at him, one of his replica swords floating in the air beside her. "If you _ever_ try to touch me again," she said through gritted teeth, "I will wrap this ridiculous toy sword around your neck until you choke to death."

"Peridot!"

The door was flung open behind her, and she turned and almost fell into Steven's arms. "Jeez, are you all right!?" he asked, taking in the scene at once and instinctively forming a bubble around them both. "Not you," he added in contempt as Ronaldo opened his mouth.

"I'm fine," Peridot mumbled, hiding her face in his shirt and inhaling the warm, safe smell of him.

"Are you sure?" Steven persisted, gently pushing her away so he could look at her face. "He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"No, I'm fine," she said again, beginning to get embarrassed by the attention. "It was just… a misunderstanding. Let's go."

Steven took once last look at Ronaldo, who was glaring at them both in obvious resentment, but he recognized that Peridot was uncomfortable and decided not to push the issue. "OK. Come on, Peedee and Connie are waiting for us downstairs."

He released the bubble, and they both turned their backs on Ronaldo and walked down the stairs to join the other couple, who both silently decided not to ask. Then the four of them made their way to Connie's car, where they passed the journey by chattering about music while the radio played in the background.

Once they reached the cinema, tickets, drinks and popcorn were purchased, and they made their way to their allocated seats. It wasn't until the trailers finished and the movie began that Steven realized that Killerbot 6, a movie about a robot relentlessly chasing a woman across the country, might not be the best choice of film for Peridot, who had been relentlessly chased across the country by the Crystal Gems back when she first arrived on Earth. The parallels weren't exact, of course; for a start, the Crystal Gems had never intended to kill Peridot, but he knew she didn't like to be reminded of that time and he could feel her tense in the seat next to him whenever Sarah, the lead character was forced to face the Killerbot. He stole a quick glance to his other side, where Connie was staring at the screen with rapt attention, occasionally leaning over to whisper in Peedee's ear. She barely seemed aware of his presence.

Suddenly, on the screen, the Killerbot burst into the room where an injured Sarah was hiding, and began to advance upon her. There was a flurry of movement next to him, and he looked over just in time to see Peridot flee the auditorium. His eyes flickered back to Connie and Peedee, and then he stood up and followed her.

He found her just outside the door, hunched over slightly and trying to control her unsteady breathing, but she straightened up when she saw him. "Steven? What are you doing out here?"

"I came to see if you were OK," he said simply.

"But Connie-" she began.

"-Probably hasn't even noticed we're gone," Steven interrupted with a small smile. "So don't worry about it." He gave her a little nudge. "So… you gonna answer my question?"

"What?" She looked blankly at him for a moment and then remembered. "Oh! Yes, sorry, I'm OK." She blushed. "I'm just… tense. I think perhaps I just reacted a little more irrationally than I would normally."

"Hey, that's understandable," he said, giving her a small smile of support. "It's been a stressful evening."

She nodded slowly. "And… and what about you? Are you OK?"

Steven grimaced. "Honestly? I don't know. Seeing her and Peedee together… it's… weird."

"Yes, I imagine it would be," she muttered. They stood there in silence for a moment, and then she spoke again. "You should go back now."

"Are you going back in?" he asked.

She hesitated. "Actually, if it's all right with you, I would prefer to remain out here for the time being."

"Then I'll stay with you," he decided.

Peridot looked concerned. "But you'll miss the end of the movie."

"That's OK." Steven smiled down at her. "Killerbot isn't really my thing. To be honest, I would've preferred to see that new ice skating rom-com," he added, nodding at the door opposite where said ice skating rom-com was playing. "Besides, the humans always win in Killerbot. I'm not missing much."

Five minutes later, the doors opened and people began pouring out. Steven and Peridot squeezed past them all and went back in to find Connie and Peedee happily chatting about the amazing twist ending. "-the effect it has on the timelines!" Peedee was saying. "No Sarah means no John-"

"-Which means Skynet never sends back the original Killerbot," Connie finished excitedly. "How will that- oh, hi you two," she said, catching sight of them. "Where did you go? You missed the whole ending! Do you want to grab some food with us?" she continued before they could answer.

"There's a place just down the road that does pretty good Chinese food," Peedee added.

Neither of them really wanted to intrude any more, but there didn't seem to be any way out of it, so they tagged along to the restaurant and listened politely while Peedee and Connie explained the end of the movie and what it meant for the future of the franchise and their predictions for Killerbot 7. But eventually, the food was eaten, the bill was paid and the ordeal was almost over. "So," Connie began as they walked back top her car. "Peridot? Are you going back to the beach house with Steven, or do you want a ride to the barn?"

"The barn, please," Peridot said at once. She said quietly in the backseat, and then when the barn came into view, she thanked Connie politely, climbed out of the car and began to walk back to the building.

"Peridot, wait," Steven said suddenly, and leapt out after her.

Peridot turned back in surprise. "Steven?"

"I just…" He trailed off awkwardly. "Um… I guess I just wanted to say… thank you."

"Oh." She lowered her head slightly. "You're welcome."

Steven opened his mouth to speak again, but no words came out. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but he just couldn't seem to work out the right words. So he gave up and pulled her close and hugged her tightly. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Don't be." She hugged him back, and then pushed him away. "I hope you two will be very happy together." And then she turned away and walked back to the barn.

xxx

Steven leaned against the car and politely averted his eyes as Connie walked Peedee home. When she returned a few minutes later, looking flushed and happy, she seemed surprised to still see him there. "Steven?"

"Hi." He straightened up and uttered the most ominous words in the English language. "Can we talk?"

Connie's smile slipped slightly. "Uh, sure, I guess so." She glanced down at the beach. "Do… do you want me to walk with you back to the house?"

He nodded. "Please."

They walked down to the now-empty sand in silence, and then Connie spoke. "So! You and Peridot, huh? How did that happen?"

Steven immediately remembered the story Peridot had come up with at the beginning of the week. "Well… to be honest, I'd always assumed you and me would end up together," he admitted. "So when you told me you were going on a date with Peedee, it was a bit of a shock. I complained about it to her, and that's when she said she liked me. And it made me think…" He trailed off. "Why didn't you tell me you were back in town last week?" he asked abruptly.

"What?" Connie stopped walking and stared at him in surprise. "How did you-" She stopped and bit her lip.

"Peedee let it slip," Steven explained. "He seemed to think I already knew." He narrowed his eyes slightly. "Were you _avoiding_ me?"

Connie blushed and turned her face away. "Kind of," she admitted.

He'd suspected it, but he was still shocked when she confirmed it. "Why?"

"Honestly?" She sighed and looked up at him again. "Do you remember what we did the last time I came over?"

Steven thought back. "We did some training, didn't we? And there was that monster…"

"And we fused into Stevonnie and defeated it," Connie finished. "What about the time before that?"

Steven furrowed his brow, trying to remember. "We… we were playing a computer game," he said slowly. "And… Amethyst accidentally popped a couple of bubbles in the Temple when she was messing around with her whip…"

"And we fused into Stevonnie and spent the rest of the day fighting them," Connie finished. "And do you remember what we did the time before _that?_ "

Steven was beginning to see a pattern. "I don't remember exactly," he hedged. "But I'm guessing we probably fused into Stevonnie to fight a monster?"

"That's _exactly_ what happened!" Connie exclaimed. "You're one of my best friends, Steven, and I like spending time with you, but it seems more and more like whenever we're together, I'm only there to be one half of Stevonnie and fight monsters. And don't get me wrong, I enjoy being Stevonnie sometimes, but they're not _me!_ I don't want to be Stevonnie forever, I want to be Connie Maheswaran!" She sighed and looked away. "I know I should've said something sooner, I'm sorry. I just… I didn't know how."

Steven shook his head. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I should've… I don't know, I should've noticed, done something…"

Connie looked away again. "Anyway," she carried on in a more neutral voice, "when I went away to college, I was surrounded by people who knew nothing about magic or the gems or me, and that's when I realized I didn't really know who I was either. It took me a while to get comfortable being just me again, instead of a monster-fighting superhero, and every time I came back, it all seemed to get undone. It was just so confusing! So… I stopped telling you when I was home. I'd just spend time with my family, or work on my studies, or go to the movies, and just be a regular human girl."

"I'm sorry," Steven said honestly. "I had no idea you felt that way."

"Well, I didn't exactly shout it from the rooftops," Connie pointed out.

They both stared out at the ocean for a moment in silent contemplation. "I took you for granted, didn't I?" Steven finally said.

"Yeah, you did, kind of," she said at once. Then she laughed. "It's not all your fault though. I never really tried to stand up for myself." She gave him a sidelong look. "I'll bet Peridot isn't shy about letting you know what she wants."

A sudden mental image of Peridot in the shower popped into his mind and he blushed. "Heh. Yeah, she's uh, she's…" He trailed off and coughed self-consciously.

Connie grinned. "Sorry, didn't mean to tease you." She set off across the sand again. "So, what have you been doing all week? My mom said she saw you guys at the mall on Tuesday, but you were… busy, and she didn't like to interrupt."

Steven looked blankly at her for a moment and then remembered the coffee shop. "Oh, right. Well, on Tuesday evening, we had a picnic, and yesterday we went to Funland. And on Wednesday…" He paused for emphasis. "We went to the Louvre."

"In Paris!? Oh my gosh!" She punched him on the arm in delight. "See, that's exactly what I'm talking about! You never took _me_ to Paris! Did you see the Mona Lisa? You saw the Mona Lisa, didn't you!? I'm so jealous!"

He laughed and rubbed his arm. "Yes, we saw the Mona Lisa, among others." He pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked the screen. "Do you want to see?"

"Yeah, I want to see!" She took the phone, looked at the picture of Steven standing in front of the Mona Lisa and and as Peridot had predicted, immediately swiped across the screen to look through the next few images. However, she didn't make it to the selfies, instead stopping at a picture of Steven and Peridot, arms linked and laughing as they stood inside the pyramid. "You both look so happy."

He took the phone back and looked at the picture too. "It was a good day," he admitted, a small smile on his face.

"Well, I'm happy for you both," she said sincerely.

"And what about you and Peedee?" He gave her a cheeky grin. "It took you a while to say goodbye to him, are you gonna see him again."

Connie grinned back happily, a light blush on her face. "He's working all day tomorrow, but on Sunday, he's coming over and we're going to start watching the first five Killerbot movies and see how the continuity is affected by the new one."

Steven pulled a face. "Can't say that's my idea of a fun date, but I hope you two have a good time." They reached the steps to the beach house and came to a halt. "Thanks for walking me back."

"No problem." She stepped forward and gave him another quick hug. "I'm glad we had this talk."

"Me too." He stepped back away from her and smiled softly. "Bye, Connie."

"Bye, Steven." She gave him a small wave, and then turned and walked away.

Steven watched as she walked around the cliff and disappeared from sight, and then raced up the steps to the now-empty beach house and crossed directly to the warp pad. Moments later, he arrived on the hillside opposite the barn. He jogged over to the wooden structure and pushed the main door open. "Hello?"

There was no answer. The interior of the barn was in darkness, but while Lapis's side of the barn appeared to be deserted, he could see a thin beam of light beneath the door on Peridot's side, so he stepped forward and knocked. When there was no answer, he knocked again.

He'd just raised his hand to knock a third time when he heard footsteps approaching, and then Peridot's voice spoke from the other side of the door. "I told you, Lapis, I don't want to-" She opened the door and stopped abruptly when she saw who was on the other side. "Steven?"

"Surprise," he said cheerfully, a wide grin on his face. It got even wider when he noticed what she was wearing. "Nice outfit."

She blushed and yanked the hem of his old t-shirt down to cover her panties. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd be busy with Connie."

"Actually," he said innocently, "I wanted to tell you how it went. May I come in?"

Peridot hesitated. She had planned to just spend the evening moping on the sofa, staring at the ceiling and torturing herself by imagining Steven and Connie together, but as he clearly wasn't doing that, she relented and stepped aside. "I suppose so."

"Thanks." Steven stepped into the little room, kicked off his sandals and sat down on the sofa. "Where's Lapis? In her room?" he asked. Although Lapis and Peridot got on well enough, sharing a space with someone all the time had turned out to be harder than they'd expected and a few months and a few arguments after Uncle Andy had given them the barn, they'd agreed to construct separate rooms on either side for when they needed some privacy.

"The Sea Shrine. Again." She sat down next to him, her legs curled underneath her, and pulled the t-shirt down again. "She thought it might be fun to go back there and use her water powers to completely obliterate it. Grind it down to dust. Apparently the other gems all thought it was a great idea. Amethyst is taking along some old dynamite she'd been saving for a special occasion and Pearl has baked a cake."

"Sounds like they have quite the evening planned," he commented.

"And what happened with your evening?" Peridot asked, getting the conversation back on track. "How did it go with Connie?" She crossed her fingers behind her back, desperately hoping their plan had failed horribly, because why else would he be here?

"Actually pretty good," he admitted. "Your suggestions worked really well." He felt her tense up next to him, but pretended not to notice as he carried on talking. "She asked how we got together, and I told her the story you came up with and she believed me. Then I gave her my phone to show her some of the pictures of the Louvre, and she started swiping through more, just like you said she would."

"If it all worked so well, why are you here?" she asked in a low voice.

"Because you were right," Steven said simply.

Peridot frowned, confused. "You'll need to be more specific. I'm right about a lot of things."

Steven began to elaborate. "Back on Monday, when you first came up with that cover story, you said I'd always assumed me and Connie would end up together, and that I'd never bothered looking elsewhere because I'd thought she would always be there. And you were right."

She looked blankly back at him. "Oooooohkay?"

"I took her for granted," he continued. "Every time we hung out, we did the same old thing, and I thought that was how it was supposed to be. I never stopped to think that she might want something different. I never stopped to think that _I_ might want something different."

"You…" She closed her mouth and concentrated on stamping down her rapidly rising hopes in case she was misunderstanding the situation. "You want something different?"

Steven nodded. "Yesterday, when she texted me, I felt awful because I hadn't really thought about her since we started fake-dating, but then I realized… if I really did love her as much as I said I did, she would've been on my mind all the time, and I never would've been able to go through with it." He leaned forward and gently took hold of her hands, a dark blush spreading across his cheeks. "You see… the reason I was able to put her out of my mind so easily is because I didn't actually love her like that. Not the way I love you."

Peridot's eyes lit up with joy. "You love me?"

"I love you," he said again.

"You're _in_ love with me?" she checked, just to be sure.

"I'm _in_ love with you," he confirmed at once.

She began to laugh with delight. "I'm in love with you too!"

And even though he'd already worked that out, Steven felt a warm glow in his chest when she said the words aloud, and he let go of her hands and pulled her into his lap so that he could kiss her more easily. She responded enthusiastically, wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him closer, parting her lips slightly and letting his tongue slip into her mouth. After a couple of seconds, he pulled away so that he could pepper the rest of her face with kisses, murmuring "I love you," before each one, then he stretched up slightly and kissed her gem.

"Nngh…" Peridot whined, and squirmed in his lap. "Do that again."

Steven leaned back in surprise, then chuckled at her flushed expression. "Do you _like_ that?"

"Don't tease me!" she pouted. "It just feels nice."

"OK, but only because you asked so nicely," he teased. She ducked her head down, and he leaned forward and kissed her gem again. Then he flicked his tongue out and touched the tip to the smooth surface and felt her shiver. "How's that?"

" _Really_ nice," she admitted.

He smirked down at her. "Looks like _someone's_ got a kink."

"It's just sensitive!" she protested. Then before he could respond, she pulled up the hem of his t-shirt and traced her fingers across the facets of his gem, and he jumped, surprised by the pleasant tingly feeling. "Heh. I thought you might like that," she said with a self-satisfied smile.

"It's just sensitive," he retorted, parroting her own words back at her.

"Hmm…" She gave him a quick peck on the lips, and then climbed off his lap and pushed his legs apart so that she could kneel between them. "Take off your shirt," she commanded.

Connie's words from earlier flittered across his mind, and he couldn't stop himself from grinning widely as he did as he was told, dropping the shirt over the side of the sofa. Once he'd settled back down, Peridot ran her hands up his thighs, then leaned forward and gently kissed his gem, and once again, there was that nice tingly feeling, and he shivered. Peridot sat back just long enough to grin knowingly at him, then she leaned forward again and ran her tongue around the edge of his gem and across the surface.

"Holy shit!" Steven gripped the arm of the sofa hard as heat pooled in his groin. He wasn't entirely sure if it was because of the new sensation against his gem or also the fact that Peridot was kneeling in front of his crotch with her hands on his upper thighs, but he was suddenly very turned on. He randomly found himself wondering if that was why Eyeball had freaked out so badly when he'd kissed her gem to heal it a few years earlier.

" _Now_ who's the one who has a kink?" Peridot said smugly, sitting back on her heels.

"You shouldn't be mean to me, you love me," he scolded good-humoredly.

"You're right, I'm sorry." She rested her cheek on his thigh and gazed up at him with a playful pout. "Is there anything I can do to make it up to you while I'm down here?" she asked, lightly running her fingers across the bulge in his pants.

Steven pretended to think. "Hmm. I dunno… perhaps there's-" He stopped with a gasp as she pressed the palm of her hand against his cock. "A-ahh!"

"You'll have to speak up." Peridot traced her fingers up his zipper. "I didn't understand a word of that."

"Y-you're being mean again," he whined, unable to stop himself from bucking up against her hand.

"Sorry," she said again, looking completely unapologetic. "What would you like me to do to make it up to you?"

This time, he didn't hesitate to make his wishes known. "I want you to take off my pants and suck my cock. But first," he quickly added as she moved to pull down the zipper, "I want you to take off my shirt."

She looked at his naked chest in confusion for a moment before she suddenly understood. "Oh!" She sat back and yanked her t-shirt over her head, exposing her bare breasts, and tossed it aside. Then she leaned forward again and undid the top button of his pants before slowly, torturously pulling down the zipper. She gave his cock a squeeze, and then hooked her fingers into the waistband of his pants and began tugging them down. Steven raised his butt off the sofa to help, and then settled back down again to watch the show. And Peridot happily obliged, leisurely pulling down the fabric and letting her breasts press against his bare legs. Finally, she pulled them free and tossed them aside, and sat back up to give his cock a quick kiss through his underpants. "I love you," she whispered.

"Are you saying that to me or little Steven?" Steven couldn't resist asking, and Peridot laughed.

"Both?" She began carefully freeing his erection from his underpants, making sure she didn't accidentally snap the elastic against him. "I love you, but…" She pulled down his boxers the rest of the way and took hold of him in a firm grip. "I have to admit that 'little Steven' has his appeal too." And with that, she leaned forward and gently kissed the tip of his cock before pressing her tongue along the underside, licking from base to tip, swirling around the head and sucking it into her mouth.

Steven groaned and fell back against the cushions. One of his hands wound up in her hair, and it took all his self-restraint not to push her further down onto his cock. Still, she seemed to understand his unspoken command, and bobbed down, taking more of him in. "Y-yeah, like that!" he gasped.

She chuckled, and he felt the vibrations around him, enhancing his pleasure. Then she settled into a rhythm, steadily moving up and down and alternatively sucking and licking as she went. One of her hands cupped his balls, rolling them gently in her palm, then she reached up and traced around the edge of his gem. Steven let go of her hair and sank his fingers into the sofa cushion as he felt himself getting close. "P-Peri… I'm gonna cum…"

Peridot hummed in acknowledgement and carried on sucking until he couldn't hold back any more. His hips jerked and he cried out her name as she swallowed his load, then he slumped back against the cushions, feeling drained and slightly light-headed, drifting in a lazy haze of euphoria. Peridot wiped her mouth and then climbed back onto his lap and looped her arms around his neck. "Am I forgiven?"

"Absolutely. One hundred per cent," he said a little drowsily. He gave her a peck on the lips, and then lay down onto the sofa, pulling her with him. He stroked the silky skin of her thigh, and then let his hand drift down to her panties. "In fact," he continued, caressing her damp pussy through the material, "I think you deserve a reward for doing so well."

"Oh?" She smiled and parted her thighs slightly. "Did you have something particular in mind?"

He smiled back and began tugging down her panties. "I had a couple of ideas I thought you might like." And once the panties were out of his way, he kissed her and slid his hand back between her legs, parting her pussy lips and lightly running a finger along her slit, feeling the wetness of her arousal. He ducked his head down and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, letting his teeth gently graze the sensitive skin, then he cupped the remaining breast with his other hand and gave it a squeeze.

Peridot sighed with pleasure and her eyes fluttered closed. "Yes… that's nice…"

" _Nice_?" Steven pretended to be insulted. "I was hoping for a little more than 'nice'!" He dipped a finger into her as he spoke and she raised her hips in response, trying to take in more. "Not so fast," he scolded, withdrawing the finger at once.

"Please, Steven," she begged at once. "It feels so good. Better than nice. Wonderful."

"Very well," he relented, and slid the finger back into her pussy and resumed nibbling at her breast. After a couple of seconds, he slid another finger into her, curling them both slightly as he pumped them in and out.

Peridot's breathing deepened and she began raising her hips to meet his movements. "Nngh… more…"

"Like this?" he asked, adding a third finger and brushing his thumb over her clit. Peridot's response was a wordless moan of pleasure, so he carried on doing that for a little while longer, feeling his own arousal growing again as he watched her writhe beneath his touch. "You look like you're having fun," he murmured in her ear, making her giggle. "Can little Steven join in?"

"Mmm, yes please," she groaned, and parted her legs a little wider.

Steven withdrew his fingers and moved until he was knelt between her thighs, and then took hold of his cock and rubbed the head along her slick pussy. "You ready?" he asked.

"Uh-huh." She grabbed his butt and pulled him closer, and with a moan of desire, he sank into her, feeling her inner walls pulling him in deeper until he could go no further. Then he pulled back and thrust into her again, making her cry out with pleasure. He felt her fingernails dig into his butt cheeks as he pulled back again, and the dim pain only enhanced his own pleasure.

He quickly settled into a rhythm, fucking her hard with long, deep thrusts, and she raised her hips to meet his movements. There was no more flirty banter, just the sound of sloppy kisses and the smack of wet flesh. After a couple of minutes, Peridot felt her climax building. "S-Steven…" she gasped, clutching him tighter.

"Cum for me," he whispered, and gave her gem a kiss.

It was all the encouragement she needed, and with a shuddering gasp, she came. He felt her clenching around him, and the sensation sent him over the edge too. He groaned loudly and thrust into her a few more times, filling her cunt with his cum.

They lay there afterwards, feeling sticky and a little sore, but blissfully happy. Peridot lazily kissed his chest and closed her eyes, and Steven wanted nothing more than to just fall asleep there with her, but he knew the gems would be wondering where he was if he wasn't there when they got back, so he reluctantly sat up. "I have to go."

"Or alternatively, you could not," she suggested, stretching languidly and blinking sleepily up at him.

It was a tempting thought, but he shook his head and reached for his boxers. "Amethyst knows I was out with Connie tonight, I don't want her getting the wrong idea."

"Eugh. No." She wrinkled her nose, and then sat up, wincing slightly. "All right. You win. I should probably wash before Lapis returns anyway." She watched him gather the rest of his clothes together, and then spoke again. "Steven?"

"Hmm?"

"What happens now?"

Steven pulled his shirt on and tapped his chin thoughtfully. Then he smiled, leaned down and gave her a quick kiss. "Pretty much the same thing I said on Monday, I guess."

She gave him a look of confusion. "What thing you said on Monday?"

"Peridot, I need you to be my girlfriend."


End file.
